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Stage Affairs in America Today* 




—BY- 
ALLEN DAVENPORT. 



INTRODUCTORY NOTE. 

This pamphlet edition of " Stage Affairs " contains 
fifteen numbers; they will appear serially on Tues- 
days of each week from January 15 to April 23, 1907 
(inclusive). In earnestly soliciting attention to the 
opinions offered herein, my chief credential that 
might seem to warrant such entreaty, is the accru- 
ment of more than sixteen years of intimate, active 
association and critical observance of the people and 
conditions of the theatre in America; their aims, 
tendencies and resultant effects ; and with a whole- 
some desire to justly praise all that which is good, 
and to modestly suggest what (in my opinion) would 
serve as a remedial adjustment for that which is evil. 
This I shall do with sound conviction, with profound 
respect, and an ardent, optimistic enthusiasm for the 
stage of the future, and truly innocent of any ill- 
disposed intent to assail and belie the established 
creeds and managerial methods of its institutions and 
their incumbents of to-day. Any critical comment 
seeking to interestedly regulate such early convictions 
(for the author is widely awake to the detriment ef- 



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fected to initiatory writers through an exuberancy of 
ideas and diction) will be considered a mark of be- 
nevolent attention, and truly a favor. And whatso- 
ever herein might gain some support from any stable 
source, in thinking to notice such, would tend only 
to more speedily correct any convictions that more 
able and experienced judges were indulgent enough 
to adversely, with honesty, remark upon. 

Allen Davenport. 



• I. 

THE PLAYWRIGHT. 

THE VITAL IMPORTANCE OF HIS COMMISSION. 

The playwright, the manager, the actor. If the 
theatre would wish to exist for the highest fulfilment 
of its proper mission, and remain in an indissoluble 
state of stable worth, the above-mentioned primal, co- 
essential forces in co-efficient form, must exist in a 
co-harmonious plan of superior workmanship. Each 
one is highly necessary to the other; but the play- 
wright is the very heart of this tri-essence, and should 
(its other co-essential factors working all in trin- 
itarian confederacy) pulsate into vigorous life and 
health the substance which this vital union shapes, 
— the institution of the theatre. The condition of 
playwright is the vital fluid flowing throughout this 
substance. The state of healthiness or impoverish- 
ment of this fluidity manifests and determines the 
condition of the substance it sustains. The condition 



-3- 

of the theatre is soundest when the heart-essence, the 
playwright, maintains it by the highest degree of 
purity. 

And in what one particular element is preserved 
the greatest purity and lasting strength of the drama? 
In its diction; in the intellectuality, elegance and 
effectualness of its language. While a play should 
present a theme worthy of consideration, sanely 
founded, methodically constructed, thoughtfully pro- 
moted, interestingly, entertainingly and absorbingly 
pursued, brought adroitly and forcibly to a logical 
climax, then finally its plot and sub- plots concisely, 
unflaggingly and clearly determined, — nevertheless, 
— as necessary and important as these stipulations 
are to the best condition of play-writing, they do 
not attain for the author (even when apparent to an 
exceptional degree) a condition of real worth in the 
art of play-writing if he fails of intellectual, elegant 
and effective diction. 

The playwright may entertain lofty, beautiful, fan- 
ciful thoughts and images, he may be able to quite 
sufficiently suggest such images through the mechan- 
ical resources of pageantry and stage eflectualness 
generally; but no mere pantomime nor mechanical 
device can ever supplant the necessity of a corre- 
sponding loftiness of diction to truthfully reveal any 
high thoughts purposed.. The playwright may be able 
to picture, and reproduce with faithfulness, the ordi- 
nary scenes of life; but, if we are to gain in the 
rightful mission of the stage, higher thoughts and 
better life, unless the playwright can exalt his images 
to something superior, and sustain in his diction a 
corresponding fitness, the stage had better totally 
surrender any intention of a proper beneficence to 



mankind, than to proclaim and champion such senti- 
ment, and yet blemish its worthiness by permitting 
the intrusion of such miserly mocksters as find sanc- 
tion from its careless guardians, both screened by 
a blind understanding of what the public wants. And 
it is in the ability of the playwright to translate his 
best mentality into exalted diction that shall secure 
the best condition of the essential force of which he 
is the vital factor. The language, the diction of a 
play, whether read or listened to, is the ever pre- 
dominant force that seizes and holds the attention. 

And it is in the exaltedness of diction, the attain- 
ment of it, that we alone can hope for the best 
condition of histrionic art. It is the force and power 
of that diction that prompts and compels the greatest 
accomplishments of the actor. It makes possible all 
the higher, the embodied variety of facial expression 
and gesture that such diction must naturally contain. 
Even in the matter of common pantomime it is a 
language that prompts and compels it. The fact that 
pantomime, inarticulate language, has never, nor can 
it ever, transcend the importance of diction, articulate 
language, in the exposition of a play, argues for the 
essential need of playwrights distinguished in the 
superiority of their diction. To regulate and utilize 
thoughts and ideas for the purposes of pantomime is 
a matter of calculative mechanism. The material of 
this storage force to be sent through the organic 
regulators to become pantomime, inarticulate language, 
is, most generally, of very ordinary importance. It 
is not difficult to find competent regulators for such. 
But when this vital storage force transcends to 
grandeur and sublimity, no regulators can be found to 
fully sustain its tremendousness through the mere 



-5- 

channels of pantomime alone, not only because of 
their failure often to completely or sufficiently under- 
stand the highest purposes of such mental conceal- 
ments, but because of the vital predominance of the 
language itself over all other conditions that go 
towards the making of a play. It must follow that 
only in an intelligent, elegant and effectual grasp and 
exposition of the diction of a play can be found the 
test of an actor's greatest endurance. A system of 
acting based on pantomime is fundamentally wrong. 
It sets in action the agents to emphasize, whereas 
they should be trained to control, emotions. No actor 
was ever great who was not proficient in a mental 
grasp and exposition of his native tongue or the lan- 
guage of his adoption. An emigrant just off a steamer 
might indicate in very good pantomime his wishes ; 
but, even in his own tongue, he could only inelegantly 
express himself. More care and attention should be 
given to the development of a high importance of 
diction in play-writing. 

I admit a purposely intentioned exaggeration, but 
notwithstanding contend that a most visible mod- 
icum of justifiable aptness must be seen in the state- 
ment that too many authors of to-day write their 
plays during the progress of a rehearsal, and even 
of its performances. A noted playwright who has 
recently visited America and lectured at some of her 
leading universities, speaks wisely and vitally in urg- 
ing the publication of plays. This would be of benefit 
to the public, of course, of vast importance to the 
studious actor devoted to his art, and its advantages 
tending towards a better condition of critical review 
would be manifold. But there is yet another reason 
why such a condition should exist. For the sake of 



-6- 

the playwright himself and the exaltation of his art. 
The exposition of his diction would serve as an im- 
petus to excel in that essential. It would wonderfully 
help to correct and improve the vital force of the 
playwright's task, the purity of the diction through 
which he manifests his types and ideas. Many authors 
will say here, "You can't tell anything about a play 
till you have rehearsed it " ; then when you are re- 
hearsing they will say, "You can't tell till you have 
tried it." And when you have tried it, what is the 
test of its fitness to survive? The immediate condi- 
tion of public approval that has been incited and main- 
tained by the various mediums of modern advertise- 
ment? The verdict of the press for or against? The 
significance of a long run? And many other stip- 
ulations entering into the capriciousness of the public 
and ingenuity of managerial skill ? No, — the test 
of endurance in any play is the hold and respect it 
will command when you take it down from the shelf 
to read; when its diction contains some quality of 
permanence. That is the vitality of any play, and I 
believe that that is the first reason why they should 
be published. That would necessitate a state of prep- 
aration, and compel care in the matter of diction. If 
the playwright is doubtful of the value of some of 
the situations, effects and " business " he has em- 
ployed, he should not hesitate to confer with some 
master in that department. The playwright should 
seek also the critic in the preparation of his compo- 
sition. I mean the truly distinguished individual of 
that craft. One of the great impediments to the at- 
tainment of exaltation in stage affairs to-day is in 
the alarming unconcerned state of unpreparedness in 
all its conditions. When such a condition is altogether 



-7- 

apparent with the playwright, the vital force of the 
stage, it necessarily follows that all adjunctive forces 
must suffer from the stagnancy caused by their pre- 
dominant governing power. 

Not long ago there appeared a reported interview 
wherein an American playwright, one truly enjoying 
marked prominence and profit from his works, com- 
plained (in words to this effect, at least) that he had 
to endure no small amount of criticism from fellow 
associates of his craft because he treated the matter 
of play-writing as such a serious one ; his critics, fur- 
thermore, dwelling on the comparative inconsequence 
of the condition of play-writing in America to-day. 
There is abundant proof of the truth of that reported 
assertion. We have a few very clever writers of 
smart plays. That cannot be denied. But their trivial 
designs and reckless diction (though often of mo- 
mentary exhilaration and pleasing entertainment) 
would seem to strengthen any argument purporting 
an inclination, or a determined intention on the part 
of the author, not to treat the quality of his com- 
mission, or the importance of his mission, with any 
commendable seriousness. It is either that or a lack 
of proper effort; and perhaps an inability to rise 
above the medium of prim mediocrity. There would 
seem to be ample reason to suspect the latter weak- 
ness, for in the few attempts made by these writers 
to construct on some theme of vital importance, they 
signally fail, not only in maintaining the theme itself, 
but in their endeavor to fittingly dignify with robes 
of worthy diction the form that they supply. In 
America to-day there are many who are skilled in 
the practice of play building, perhaps, but their diction 
is seldom above the medium of colloquialism, and often 



-8- 

descends to the plane of commonplace conversation, 
and not infrequently to the condition of unlearned, 
ill-mannered talk. 

The playwright who is not heedful of the unlimited 
benefits he is empowered to bestow upon, and the 
real usefulness of the service he owes to and holds 
the authority to exercise over his public, can never 
rightfully hope for permanent and valuable profit to 
that public or to himself. The playwright has a great 
commission ! He who usurps that trust and debases it 
with the substitution of criminal counterfeit, — the 
outgrowth of cunning ignorance, misdirected energy, 
and wilful plagiarism, — threatens public decorum, 
poisons its taste, and stagnates its higher instincts and 
nature. The playwright at best is the clergyman in 
the consecrated seclusion of his workroom. The stage, 
to fulfil a mission greater than does any other in- 
stitution save that of the church, must be rescued 
from the clutches of irregular commercialism, illiter- 
acy and charlatanry. It must invite, promote and 
maintain a status of high import. And this status 
must be attained by — and when once assured always 
receive — the unswerving support of that co-efficient, 
co-harmonious threefold working force — manager, 
playwright, actor. 

The playwright's labor finds expression through the 
co-operate, adjunctive mediums of stage manager, 
actor, singer, scenic artist, musician, and the art 
mechanics of the theatre. These offices are respon- 
sible ones, and the discharging of their functions has 
much to do with making or marring the discourse 
of the playwright. We should hold them high and 
follow them honestly, but none of these adjuncts 
should be so lavishly employed as to predominate, 



darken or impede the play; they should accompany, 
illumine and hasten it. Can we to-day truly say that 
this is often so? What commission does the play- 
wright receive from the manager ? Does the manager 
say, " Write me a play of worthy theme, noble pur- 
pose, literary elegance, dignified personages, pleasing, 
wholesome comedy, action, and so on, then when you 
have completed the mental conception we will select 
some pretty colors of human type to express your 
image within an appropriate frame " ? No, he more 
likely says, "I have some pretty colors and a handsome 
frame ; patch me up a picture " ; or, " Here is a popu- 
lar novel ; pick out the glaring threads and sew them 
into a single garb." The manager himself sometimes 
presumes this mission; the actor also. The mediocre 
clergyman, the sensational preacher, rushes in to fill 
the vacuum unpossessed of worthy matter. He sel- 
dom maintains the meanest idealism of his pulpit. 
With the adjuncts that the theatre supplies, he should 
embellish and exalt his context. Then again the 
newspaper journalist invades the field. He holds some 
uses that the manager is not unmindful of. It is quite 
evident that the fraternity of the press will make 
some sympathetic response ; that is altogether wrong 
if the material under consideration be not worthy. 
The playwright's is an art by itself! And if there 
be men and women desirous of preparing, studying 
and finishing it as such, what hope lies before to in- 
spire them or help at hand to maintain them, when 
such impudent usurpation of their proper commissions 
confronts them? 

Furthermore, with stage affairs in America to-day, 
it is not generally the play, but the player, that re- 
ceives the first consideration. If this player were 



-10- 

most always proficient in his art, we would not so 
much complain; or were he true to a proper expo- 
sition of its best purposes. But such is not often 
the case. This player rarely is selected because of 
his exceptional talent, but most frequently because of 
some youthful charm of person, extraordinary mold 
of beauty; sometimes through the highest degree of 
creative taste and fashion in dress and make-up; 
then again through some natural, unhelpable pe- 
culiarity of speech or manner; and still again by 
possession of hereditary inheritance; and in a few 
instances through the enjoyment of an income (or 
means at hand through other channels) to buy a 
vehicle in which to parade his pretence. To fit any one 
or all, of these forms with tinseled robes to hide their 
deformities and immerge the drifting parasites in tow, 
is, in the general conduct of affairs to-day, the en- 
forced commission of the one who furnishes enter- 
tainment for the theatre's patrons. This is affording 
sensual sustenance to the prodigal, and starving the 
home. The manager orders it, the playwright pro- 
vides it, the actor exhibits it, and the public buys 
and partakes of it. 

Wherein lies the remedy? Not with the public, 
surely. Because a child prefers salads and pastries 
to substantial, wholesome diet is poor excuse for giv- 
ing it to him. But he will take it if you are so 
unwise as to indulge him. To develop and preserve 
a healthy physical condition in mankind is vitally 
important. At times, if the ingredients be pure and 
well prepared, no special harm can follow in allow- 
ing the child a judicious amount of salad and pastry. 
But he should be made to prefer and partake of the 
wholesome first. That is a duty of his providers. 



-11- 

We are all children of the nation. We wish to de- 
velop and preserve for it a mental wholesomeness 
as well. To do that properly we must develop and 
preserve a preference for what is good and substan- 
tial. That condition apparent in the individual sus- 
tains the totality. But be assured too many of us 
will prefer salad and pastry if you so indulge us. 
Here also it is the providers who are responsible. 
With them it should be a duty to provide wholesome- 
ness if we would develop and preserve in mankind 
a condition of mental healthiness. Now and again, 
if the ingredients be pure and well prepared, a little 
salad and pastry is a good thing even as a mental 
diet. 

And so the manager and actor must realize and 
acknowledge, the former his true mission of the in- 
stitution he conducts, the latter a reverence for the 
art he professes. Then both should confess and main- 
tain a fidelity and support to the playwright desirous 
of fulfilling his offices through a determination to 
excel by devoted energy and through emulation of 
the best and highest that have preceded him. And at 
last, these three primal factors working in co-effi- 
cient, co-harmonious union establishes a standard, and 
at once compels and holds the desired following, ful- 
filling in truth the wholesome aims of the vital trust 
they form, — the theatre. No one really wants an 
impure if he can have a pure article. Once he has 
been enabled to distinguish the latter, he won't take 
the former. If the manager were a man of integ- 
rity, he wouldn't order it. If the playwright wrote 
for the dignity of his art, for the intellectual purity, 
moral soundness of his great charge, he wouldn't 
provide it. If the actor regarded the beauty of the 



-12- 

art he professes, he wouldn't exhibit it. These con- 
ditions respected, it wouldn't be for sale; the public 
could not buy, and therefore would not have it to 
partake of. The manager must be honest in his 
business, the actor reverent to his art, the playwright 
faithful to his trust, both the former aiding him 
with fidelity and support. 

So encourage, honor and respect the commission 
of the playwright. Seek to exalt it, that the skilful 
may build with gold, marble and oak; not debase it, 
submitting it to usurpation for the wanton appren- 
tice to flout with foil, dirt and knotted driftwood. 
The playwright should always create superior types, 
except in cases of rare characters of positive dialects. 
Those the author should clearly define, and the em- 
ployment of art in acting alone reveal. Reproducing 
on the stage conversation as it happens generally in 
real life is at best uninteresting, and often when 
truthfully transplaced, compromising to the best 
standard we might hope to maintain. This un- 
reasoned strife for realistic touches in stage exhibi- 
tion is (in its commonplace indifference and incon- 
gruous absurdity) impoverishing the vital properties 
of fanciful imagery, illusion and logically propor- 
tionate theatric effect; conditions that are the very 
props that sustain the best achievements and possi- 
bilities of the theatre. A critic prominent in a large 
theatrical city recently wrote as follows concerning 
a play strained with attempts at realistic effectual- 
ness : "Yet, with all this faithful devotion to realism, 

the (naming the play) remains unconvincing." 

It is impossible ever to convince of the utmost ef- 
fectualness and dramatic worth of a play where 
authors insist on a reverence for realism in a theme 



-13- 

of common importance spun into a dramatic fabric 
through the medium of characters intending to trans- 
place ordinary events in everyday life. 

The stage of any nation should at any sacrifice and 
at all times maintain the purity of the mother tongue. 
The theatre should establish a criterion regarding the 
highest uses of the language of the people it en- 
tertains and instructs. As in a plea against the 
adoption of a curtailed system of spelling, so far 
more in an earnest cry for a purer understanding 
and a higher and more truthful exposition of the 
diction by which we express interchange of thought, 
let never the essence of a spirit of highest develop- 
ment descend to the demands and approval of care- 
lessness and ignorance; but ever strive rather to 
enable that condition to approximately understand 
and reach the utmost exaltedness that such a spirit 
should truly inspire. Have done with puerile senti- 
mentality, fetid sensationalism, comic ridicule, and 
their misnomer, heart interest. Build us plays of art 
design, pulsating life and thought through the chan- 
nels of truth, purity and beauty, all centred in the 
vitality and nobleness of some true heart interest. 



Number Two of "Stage Affairs," appearing Jan- 
uary 22, 1907, concerns : 

THE BUSINESS MANAGER 

HIS TRUE MISSION. 



Twe Copies Recelyed * 



JAN 22 ISO? 

Copyright Enti 
JVSS A XXc, NqJ 



Copyright Entry J 



^ 



CC>VY B. 



Stage Affairs in America Today, 



—BY- 
ALLEN DAVENPORT. 



II. 
THE BUSINESS MANAGER. 

HIS TRUE MISSION. 

It is not the spirit of commercialism itself that can 
ever stand a menace to a healthy progression in art 
endeavor; that, to the contrary, is its essential bene- 
factor ; but it is the ambitious strife to arrest, through 
loose integrity and a sacrifice of approximate ideal- 
ism, the true mission of the high purposes of these 
conditions, and by the official force of monopolistic 
measure to gain and hold in close controlment the 
righteous freedom and natural legality of individual 
endeavor for supremacy, practised through the lawful 
ways and means of honesty, thrift and genuineness. 
To-day we are fast building commercial jails, and 
stuffing them with imprisoned wealth and empty noto- 
riety. And yet the condition of equal opportunity has 
never before been so apparent and accessible as it 
is to-day. And the possibility of this most desirable 
condition has been due in no small measure to the 
beneficence of many individuals, who, in their quality 



—2— 

of commercial importance, are ignorantly misjudged 
and abused by the very ones to whom they open a 
highway of plain direction, if such would but follow, 
and not transgress its roadway. I admire and believe 
in an honest fight for individual supremacy; but as 
bitterly despise the vain supremacy that finds its ends 
through doubtful integrity and a disregard for ap- 
proximate idealism. 

In America to-day very nearly every condition and 
phase of the theatre that might and should tend * 
towards placing its institutions on a high standard 
of business integrity, establishing a criterion in the 
composition and exhibition of dramatic material, and 
raising its expositors, the actors, to a just significance 
of the title "artist," — as one professing proper skill 
in the true accomplishment of a fine art, — nearly all 
such conditions and phases have become subservient 
to, or are wholly immersed in, the one predominant 
stipulation — irregular commercialism. While, when 
applied to the legitimate and necessary occupations 
in life (where actual needs are at the dictatorial dis- 
pensation of presumptuous control), such a condition 
is most deplorable and more freely open to censure, 
notwithstanding, in matters of art publication and 
exhibition directly affecting the moral and mental 
condition of the people, it should be none the less 
exempt from just criticism and an honest solicitation 
towards approximate adjustment.. 

Business is trade; buying and selling to realize a 
profit. A man is in business to make money. The 
theatre manager is no exception to this rule. If, 
with his business tact, he combines artistic tenden- 
cies and advances them to his common benefit, it is 
indeed a happy condition. But we look only for 



—3— 

business qualities in the theatre manager. As a 
business man conducting a first-class establishment, 
buying and selling, — trading, — his all-important 
requisite should be integrity. He should deal in pure, 
unadulterated goods. He is dealing in a luxury, in 
a way, an extravagance. It is not, of course, a ne- 
cessity strictly speaking. From a purely business 
point of view he might be classed, in just impor- 
tance, with the wine merchant and the tobacconist; 
or any tradesman that, in an indulgence of his 
wares, in any degree, such gratification necessarily 
takes the form of a luxury. 

In a way, the theatre merchant has the greater 
trust. He has in charge the mental and moral fac- 
tors of the public he sells to. The wine merchant 
and the tobacconist perhaps satisfy first the appetite; 
they furnish first a sensual feast, which, if abused, 
it is true might readily impair, not only the physical 
condition, but the mental and moral agents as well. 
The theatre merchant supplies a feast also; it is a 
visual, intellectual one, but which, if offered in an 
impure, adulterate form, might easily assail the mental 
and moral agents. All of these merchants deal in 
luxuries, which, if impure and adulterated, become a 
menace to society, producing an evil condition. Their 
trusts are solemn ones. Perhaps you will say, the 
wine merchant and the tobacconist are dealing in 
tangible stable goods, while the theatre merchant 
deals only in unfixed, vacillating material. You will 
not be altogether wrong at this day in saying so. 
But right does not always consist of what is, but 
rather what might and should be. 

The theatre should be a methodic business, not a 
speculative chance. It should be a durable play- 



house in the keeping of honest, staid merchantmen, 
not a trifling plaything in the hands of feverish, 
changeable gamesters. Every reputable merchant to 
maintain his custom must keep his goods pure and 
unadulterated. The merchant, if he be honest, will, 
when offering a new line of goods to his customers 
and smaller dealers, be careful of the quality before 
he offers it. He will put it to a test. Even then it 
does not always meet favor with his custom; but 
if he be honest, he quickly withdraws it. The cus- 
tomer will seldom complain. He may say that the 
goods do not come up to his expectation, and he 
prefers not to handle them. He may offer no ex- 
planation. The merchant he has received them from 
has his confidence. He knows of his integrity, and 
such an occurrence could not sever their bond of 
trade. 

The theatre manager does not recognize any spe- 
cial test of the goods he is about to dispense. He 
says, "We never know till we have tried a play 
whether it will go or not." He means by that, make 
money or not. If, when he has tried it, the public 
and press unite in repelling it, in refusing to handle 
it, does the theatre manager always quickly with- 
draw it? In a few cases, where it is a hopeless fail- 
ure beyond any dispute, he may perhaps; but gen- 
erally speaking he resorts to methods to force his 
goods upon unknowing customers. He sets to work 
play- jobbers to hack and hew and patch up again; 
to interpolate, regardless of congruity, just propor- 
tions and continuity; any means that may lead to 
a readjustment of his pecuniary outlay and a hope 
of ultimate remunerative gain on imperfect, unsatis- 
factory material. He discriminate^ and indiscrim- 



—5— 

inately fills his theatre night after night with the 
show of patronage. He appropriates from press clip- 
pings fragments of sentences and falsely applies them 
in advertising purposes to deceive the public, his cus- 
tomers. He forces an unwarranted number of per- 
formances, and then prepares to send his salesmen 
ahead to delude his foreign buyers into purchasing 
his latest line of goods. He often supplies the places 
of superior, high-priced actors with inferior, low- 
paid talent. He cuts and trims where he can, and 
then advertises the complete production, with its orig- 
inal cast. This is not business integrity, and it does 
not deserve success. But it too often attains its end, 
— satisfying box-office receipts. But it is truly a 
condition of irregular commercialism. 

In this great expansive country, the existence of 
trusts, if they are honest in purpose and method, 
is a condition much to the public's good. Indeed, it 
becomes almost a necessity in facilitating large op- 
erations. But if a trust is not honest, the extent of 
the evil it is capable of committing is in just pro- 
portion to the rnonstrousness of the corporation itself. 
It is the vicious spirit of monopoly that is to be 
dreaded. That spirit, evident at the inception, trans- 
mits to its offspring, the trust, the same disposition. 
That condition, uncorrected and animated through 
disregard of integrity, grows into the corrupt mon- 
ster that must feed on the vitality of its smaller 
species if it would subsist. When it has sufficiently 
devoured this sustenance, and corrupted it hopelessly 
by contaminating embodiment, and nothing more re- 
mains to glut its abnormal craving, it decays in the 
natural stagnancy of its corruptness, and carries 
along with it all that has succumbed to its tyranny. 



For what it has consumed and unremittingly de- 
stroyed, it makes no restitution. But if this trust be 
honestly fathered, it transmits an inheritance of good, 
which, if uprightly pursued, and its offspring not 
liable of seizure and surrender to this vicious spirit, 
grows into a vast beneficence. If the natural area 
of its activity encroaches on its smaller kind, it makes 
reparation for its trespass by the added advantages, 
facilities and reasonableness of charges offered to its 
beneficiaries, the public. If its practices be regular 
and the material it dispenses honest, this is lawful 
competition and beneficent. It does not seek to pre- 
vent competition; it invites and exhilarates it by 
the mere fact of its regularity and honesty. The men 
who conduct the business are honest, the ones who 
furnish the counters are honest, and the ones who 
dispense the goods are honest, even though they may 
all contain one head. Every moral and lawful obli- 
gation is fulfilled to the purchasers. If the business 
of the theatre could be relieved of speculation, dis- 
honesty and charlatanry, and placed in the power of 
honest business managers, dealing with honest play- 
wrights, and dispensing through honest actors, all 
working through the offices of trusts honestly fath- 
ered, it would truly lead to the proper adjustment 
of the theatre in America, and by the integrity of 
its providers, relieve the compliant and indulgent 
public of any further show of indiscreet civility. 
Such a state of affairs is impossible now, of course. 
The stipulated conditions must be steadily and health- 
ily brought to a fixedness and realization of their just 
importance. 

Merited independence can not be despotically set 
aside. It must either sink or succumb to the irreg- 



—7— 

ularities and practices of that despotism first. Mo- 
nopoly is contrary to nature, and consequently only 
nature herself can best provide the condition that 
shall dethrone its tyranny. You cannot supplant it 
otherwise except by the triumph of enforced despotic 
competition of another monopoly, that must in time 
become as vicious as the one overthrown. To ad- 
vance the theatre to the true dignity and rightful 
power that would claim the respect of all honest trade, 
it should be represented by merchants whose purposes 
and methods exemplify in highest meaning the word 
"integrity." Integrity of the individual in an honest 
fight for supremacy. If that individual stands for 
the dominant power of some big combination, just 
to the extent that the scope of his trust offices ex- 
ceeds that of the single-handed individual, just to 
that farther reaching and broader extent becomes he 
capable of benefiting the public and the class of work- 
men he must employ, which means still farther an 
accrued advantage to the general condition of work- 
ingmen. But he must be genuinely honest. Then, 
the trust creates and speeds good. But if dishonest, 
it must equally retard and demoralize any possible 
prospect of lasting benefit. 

While the theatre manager should have positive 
views, and exercise the right to judge as to what 
material shall be exhibited from his stage, he should 
never presume to manage the preparation and expo- 
sition of it. That he may suggest or advise in quiet 
counsel is perfectly proper and desirable; but the 
affairs of the stage should be completely under the 
executive control of a competent stage manager. 
Each should amicably serve as a balance to the con- 
servatism or liberalism of the other. We should do 



—8— 

away with stage synonyms ; the stage director, the 
play producer, the actor-manager (the Pooh Bah of 
the theatre), who too often leaves no mark of future 
regard save the self-satiation of his personal vanity. 
We except, of course, a few of the great minds that 
have lent distinction and insured future worth to the 
stage. But they are few, and even with some of 
them it is questionable whether any positive benefit 
can accrue the future state of the stage through the 
greatness of actor-managers, who, in their autocratic 
insistence of a condition of complete subserviency to 
their predominant mentality, have checked and suffo- 
cated any apparent audacity of individuality fighting 
for deserved supremacy. 

But to revert to the manager and now briefly dis- 
cuss the tangibility of the material at the disposal of 
this theatre merchant. He conducts an art store. In 
the material he handles he is greatly reliant on a 
judicious employment and association with play- 
wright, actor, musician, singer, scenic artist, art me- 
chanics ; and, in the provident production of their 
crafts. If these workers be proficient in their separate 
vocations, if they have prepared (before they profess 
to practise) their arts, if they be reliable, and hon- 
estly endeavor to best aid the manager and serve 
his patrons, the results of such purpose must be of 
tangible, stable worth, and sterling material to traffic 
in. But if they be incompetent, charlatans and dis- 
honest, brazenly intruding into such domains, unpre- 
pared, unpractised, without even having served an 
apprenticeship, their wares consequently sink to the 
state of unfixed, vacillating worthlessness. To ex- 
hibit such material is hazarding a chance. It is mere 
speculation. It is dishonest. If the manager is cog- 



— 9— 

nizant of such existing conditions (and of course he 
often must be), he so declares himself a trickster. If 
he wishes to be faithful and honest to the best pur- 
poses of his trust and to his public, -he would neither 
employ nor associate with any craftsman whose work 
did not possess the quality of tangible, stable worth- 
iness. It is to be lamented that this condition of 
unpreparedness and incompetency exists almost ex- 
clusively in the vocations of the actor and the play- 
wright, the two conditions of all that should be 
found most thoroughly prepared and proficient. The 
arts of scene painter, musician, and even mechanic 
are virtually pursued with much more general 
methodical preparation, progression and finish than 
are those of actor and playwright. What wonder, 
then, that the spectacular and musical element of 
stage production predominates to-day. It is by virtue 
of a natural right. Not until the condition of actor 
and playwright be raised to a status of self-evinced 
import, and some guarantee of fixedness attached to 
their liableness in the practise of their profession, just 
so long as these channels are open to the reckless 
intrusion of any mean applicant that has become pos- 
sessed with a desire to write plays and act, unmindful 
of his lack of any proper degree of preparation or 
fitness to engage in such nice occupations, and just 
so long as the business manager will hazard a chance 
with such, through his speculative greed to seek quick 
pecuniary advantage, just so long there can be no 
healthy drama, nor any tangible worth attached to 
the trade of the theatre manager, nor any conse- 
quent dignity, importance and just respect shown for 
the institution he conducts — the theatre. 

Assure the public of your integrity of purpose, and 



—10— 

even if your production does not always come up to 
highest expectation, that public will not censure nor 
forsake you. It will leniently overlook the momentary 
relapse, and rest content in the assurance that the 
next offering will attain the standard of excellence 
which your integrity has taught them to expect. If 
it be argued that the supply cannot always meet the 
demand, I would reply that there lie unused hundreds 
of classic and standard dramas, high-class comedies, 
opera bouffe and burlesques, which in the hands of 
the skilled playwright and musician, aided by the 
adept stage manager, could, by expert uses of modern 
appliances, equipments and mechanical devices of the 
theatre of to-day, be reconstructed into highly ap- 
proved, intellectual and relishable entertainment. At 
all events, they would be preferable to the inane, 
plotless fabrications of vulgar action and verbal 
slush concocted by brazen incompetency. Famous 
musicians and distinguished librettists have lent their 
art and talents to the building of opera bouffe and 
burlesque; now lost arts, emerged in the hectic 
whirl of distorted dialect, monkey grimaces and in- 
solent ridicule masquerading as satire. Honesty and 
integrity in the business manager would move him 
to promote the former to the exclusion of the mean- 
ingless medley of current amusement that disturbs 
the best purposes of the theatre to-day. Such action 
would inspire an awakening to higher efforts in play- 
writing, and the ultimate results of such endeavor 
would furnish reliable material; tangible art goods. 
The theatre merchant then might take his place 
amongst the foremost tradesmen of the day. In his 
integrity and bid for public trust and confidence, it 
would not be unusual to find him presiding at some 



—11— 

distinguished board of direction. Such a condition 
of reliable theatre traffic, either independently con- 
ducted, or through the channels of honest combination, 
free from the irregular practices of base monopoly 
and selfish gain, would eventually place the theatre 
in unquestioned repute as a public benevolence and 
educator, and would ever foreshow, an inheritance 
to others, and not alone tell, the mere momentary 
possession of individual personality and speculative 
flurry. 



Number Three of " Stage Affairs," appearing 
January 29, 1907, concerns: 

THE ACTOR. 

THE QUALITY OF HIS IMPORTANCE. 



MM 22 1907 



Two Copies Received 

JAN 29 190/ 



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CUSS A KXc, N* 
COPY B/^ 



2. 



Stage Affairs in America Today, 



—BY- 
ALLEN DAVENPORT. 



III. 
THE ACTOR . 

THE QUALITY OF HIS IMPORTANCE. 

In the best type of American actor we find a per- 
son broad-minded, generous and charitable; of high 
intellect, becoming deportment and social import. He 
maintains with all a compliant nature, that attracts 
to him readily consequential men and women, ever de- 
manding profit and entertainment from his compan- 
ionship. In freely yielding to this condition, a serious 
devotion to a proper progression in his art must often 
necessarily be set aside, in surrendering to a few, the 
time, talents and nervous energy that should rather 
be constantly cared for, increased and expended on 
the many who make up the public to whom this actor 
must ever be a conscientious and .faithful, albeit fear- 
less, servant. It is in the condition of this type of 
actor — if self-devoted and determined to attain the 
highest approximate state of perfection in the pur- 
suit of his art — that the American stage might 
easily claim, at least, a predictive condition of ex- 



— 2— 

cellence, foretelling with great surety a future of 
exalted and permanent worth in the conduction of its 
truly useful and beneficial institution, the theatre. 

There exists another type of actor in America. He 
emblemizes the quality shown in the vast multitude 
of vagrant incumbents lounging on the unsound, tin- 
seled frailty of an unseemly abuse of the institution 
and art, whose proper aims should rather stir them 
to an appreciation and effective use of the true re- 
sources and talents claiming a legitimate relation to 
the vocation that viciously they have slumped into. 
These men and women have no settled aim, no serious 
inclination. They entered into their calling with few 
natural attributes to recommend them, and they re- 
main in it with few inclinations to pursue it, except 
to satisfy a mere sensual craving to be in it, and to 
enjoy the more or less unrestrained freedom and care- 
less companionship that such a general nomadic life 
affords, regardless, and at the expense, of any ex- 
penditure of energy, and concentrated application of 
thought, to utilize their idle moments, and "resting" 
respites, towards elevating their conditions both as 
actors and as men. To this type of actor it is con- 
sidered time enough to study a part when he gets a 
chance to play it Then when the chance comes, he 
is more intent on playing it first, and studying it 
afterwards (if, indeed, he does even then). To get 
work is his all-absorbing thought. To receive remun- 
eration his all-important necessity. The means by 
which he is to attain these conditions, and the ques- 
tion as to his qualifications to rightfully assume the 
practice of the essential demands made upon him as 
an artist, are of minor importance or of no consid- 
eration whatsoever. The matter of art in the con- 



— 3— 

cerns of his stage career is hopelessly immerged in 
the constant strife for remuneration and the sensual 
desire to satisfy that condition through the alluring 
channels of stage life. He does not know, nor would 
he have the patience to endure the fact, that, if he 
properly prepared for his art and honestly practised 
it, the remuneration would be finally and securely 
awarded. But the actor is not wholly to blame for 
this existing state of his condition. 

With the exception of a few names essential to the 
furtherance of pecuniary gain, the manager of to-day 
selects his cast much after the manner that he does 
the scenery, properties and effects of the play he is 
about to produce. The owner, author, director, or 
all three (whoever has the say), generally interviews 
the actors and actresses, — after days, sometimes 
weeks and even months on their part, of patient, or 
impatient, waiting, — looks them over, so to speak, 
and if they realize in personal favor, voice, looks and 
shape, the part under consideration, the possession 
or no of histrionic art is a matter of little or no 
consequence. If the vocation of the stage is to be 
considered a profession and acting an art, who can 
justly deny that the existence of such a condition as 
has just herein been cited, is not truly deplorable and 
somewhat discouraging, and indeed needful of at- 
tempted adjustment at least? 

To-day the actor or actress possessing the advantage 
of an inheritance through relationship to prominent 
and famous antecedents is bought and sold in theatri- 
cal trade merely on the strength of that inheritance. 
This is not only an injustice to many more deserv- 
ing actors lacking such advantage, but also, in many 
cases, a great injury to the human property thus 



bartered by the greed of theatrical speculation. The 
inherent talent in these actors and actresses would, if 
quietly awakened, carefully nurtured and sturdily ma- 
tured, assure much hopeful expectancy for the best 
purposes of the stage and its future exaltation. But 
no, — they are thrust into the glare and focus of 
high lights, fitted, sometimes misfitted, with a vehicle 
to expose their personal charms of youth, decoying 
eccentricities of manner, and by the time that they 
should have quite securely moulded their art into a 
form that proper preparation, progression, study and 
experience might chisel into images of special beauty, 
they are too often left neglected by the traders who 
bartered them, and by the public whose senses then 
have become all too surfeited. Broken toys in a 
deserted corner of the playhouse. 

The actor in America to-day (and there are very 
few exceptions, even amongst the so-called " big 
ones ") endures more, fawns and cringes, sacrifices 
intellectuality, temperament, and even manhood, to 
obtain and hold his position, a thousand times more 
than he would in any other employment or vocation 
under the sun. Every manager knows this and makes 
advantage of it. He doesn't disguise the fact; the 
actor can't. The actor to-day is relegated to the man- 
ager's " prop " list merely. He commands respect 
only as regards his use and durability. The quality 
of his importance is « estimated, and he is also sub- 
jected to the same' -abuse and censure, or attention 
and praise, in a like manner as are the inanimate 
properties purchased to adorn the stage. And yet 
this same actor too often waits upon the manager 
as no serf does upon his king. Why? Because the 
actor has little or no consideration for his art for its 



own sake. He prefers to earn his living by following 
the stage. He lives in hope that some lucky strike 
is going to bring him at once fortune and perhaps 
fame, and thereby reverse the quality of his impor- 
tance. He has no proper, healthy estimate of the 
profession he would be a part of. He doesn't know, 
he doesn't care, nor will he recognize, that the actor's 
vocation is a profession, the practice of it an art. 
To him it is a business first and last. He, too, is a 
speculator. He is in the same game with the man- 
ager, and shows his hand at every play. The fault 
is here, — the actor lacks ideals and a true spirit 
of emulation. He lives, almost always, alone for the 
momentary prospect of pecuniary gain; seldom for 
the growing, lasting attainment of art gain. By for- 
feiting a respect for his art and its ideals, and con- 
fessing a disregard for the true spirit of emulation, 
he forfeits the respect of all the conditions and stip- 
ulations that surround that art and might tend towards 
his benefit. He does not justly respect his own con- 
dition, and consequently neither challenges nor de- 
serves respect from others. 

In this fact (a lack of ideals and the true spirit 
of emulation), almost solely, I believe, lies the cause 
for the failure of self-maintenance of the Actors' 
Fund of America. Therein lies, I believe, the stigma 
that blinds the path that might otherwise light the 
unobstructed way to self-supporting permanency of 
the Actors' Fund of America. A state that would 
allow its charity to exist unheralded, and unaided 
by the public whose purse and patience are perhaps 
taxed quite enough already. The gentlemen officiat- 
ing for that Fund are pre-eminently equipped to 
efficiently discharge its business functions. It appears 



they do most thoroughly with tact and unselfish labor ; 
but notwithstanding, the president of the Fund in his 
annual report of May, 1905, makes this statement: 
" The only relief we have recourse to, is through the 
help of the actors and actresses; if they will con- 
tribute their small annual payments, as members of 
the Fund, it will then be placed above want; but we 
must allow for a large percentage of falling off, and 
so I presume the officers will have to continue or- 
ganizing benefits from year to year." This is a con- 
dition that has existed for many previous years, and 
bids fair to remain unaltered. Reflect on that con- 
dition confronting a board of direction, for the most 
part business managers who are giving serious, ar- 
duous labor in the cause of charity, to benefit the 
condition of that same actor to whom they pay also 
a salary. Managerial skill, business tact, has not sup- 
plied, nor does it seem likely to worthily furnish, the 
deficiency caused by the neglect and failing duty of 
the beneficiary, — the actor. And he is not miserly ; 
he is almost always generous, helping, charitable if 
thrown into environments of immediate necessity. 
But he lacks ideals and the beautiful spirit of emula- 
tion. He vies with the manager for pecuniary gain. 
" I'm in the business for the money," says the actor. 
Not one in five hundred or more admits he is in it 
for anything else. 

Acting is an art! An intellectual occupation! The 
actor should, first of all, live and work for his art. 
Pecuniary gain is the manager's need. He can't 
exhibit art without it. The actor who professes his 
art alone for the " money there is in it," has no honest 
claim to its possession. He has no right to remain 
and clog the mainspring of the true motive of the 



theatre; the art expression of human types and ideas. 
Such a one should be excluded from it. His place 
belongs to him who appreciates, and desires to the 
more appreciate, the true beauties of his art. Then, 
if the remuneration do not follow, he has not failed; 
and there awaits ahead to receive him, a home. It 
is what he has striven to make it. And when he 
has gained that home, there should be one thought 
uppermost in his mind : "I earned this ; it is mine 
by right." 

A word concerning the instilling of idealism in the 
actor through emulation of the fittest of his own craft. 
I speak with no ill-disposed intent to assail and belie 
the stage, its institutions or its incumbents. There 
is a society in New York City, which, in its appella- 
tive significance, is all that might be desired to con- 
vey in a single thought its motive for existence. 
Nearly all of the most prominent personages insep- 
arable from the stage of America to-day are members 
of this society. That is to say, they lend distinction 
to its roll-call. Some few are active and more or 
less earnest and devoted workers in its cause. But, 
— the great unswaying membership (albeit they may 
be good companions, honest fellows, willing givers) 
appear like the restless, drifting, unintentioned sea- 
farer, unpurposed in the true significance that the 
practice of his craft implies. And so with this ma- 
jority membership (pleasantly edging and elbowing 
each other in their endeavors to reach the newest 
favor, or present the latest grievance), what magnet 
anchor hove within their harborage makes them fast? 
A chance of pecuniary gain. A society whose banner 
is of such declaration as is theirs should be free 
from any semblance of pecuniary inducements. At 



its head should jet its sternest life and richest en- 
dowments to spray with precept, example, helpful- 
ness and fraternity its component members. To the 
public that honors such, is owed a loyalty, it is true; 
but to the profession (the distinguished part of which 
they are), to that profession which in claiming them 
makes it possible for that public to honor them, they 
owe much more, — a sacred duty to keep it beautiful ! 
to banish from its altar every odor that might de- 
basely infuse the actor's sense and art, and then to 
spread the incense of idealism through emulation, that 
it should arouse the brotherhood of actors in Amer- 
ica to the highest sense of duty to the art that they 
are privileged to profess. 

The spirit of charity would then be embodied in 
this fulfilment. It would need no urging. The op- 
portunities to pursue one's art would appear from 
out this consummation without the sense of trade. 
There then would be an end to that unstable engaging 
agency, wavering (in its bid for patronage from man- 
ager and actor) on an uncertain balance, ready to 
shift its weight in that direction which may best ful- 
fill the immediate prospect of its purposes, and insure 
some future favor. A vicious need, breeding and 
maintaining jealousy, partiality and a woful lack of 
self-reliance. In the practice of this medium is seen 
no proper spirit, no special attempt of an orderly, 
systematic and just disposal of positions to be filled. 
Here preferments often go to those unworthy, in- 
competent, inexperienced, but who, nevertheless, 
through bonds of affection, social ties and favoritism, 
must be advanced in spite of the lack of any real merit, 
and often to the sacrifice of experience, ability and 
rank. These agencies swarm with idlers, possessing 



—9— 

no higher estimate of the institution they lie in wait 
to inhabit, than that it may give them the temporary 
indulgence of work, and thus fixes upon it a common 
condition, putting it in the same category with the 
multifarious forms of servility, whose individuals, to 
find their medium of activity, seek registration in the 
employment bureau. 

The Brotherhood of Actors and the Actors' Fund 
of America should constitute a stanch and firmly 
welded union of two distinct, and yet inseparable, co- 
operate factors. The former confronts the animate 
joy of daily strife to maintain both; it seeks rest, 
comfort and happiness in the companionship and care 
of the latter. But the latter cannot be idle! They 
must help each other if they would hope to properly 
sustain the desired object of their union, — a self- 
maintenance of their home, freed from any sense or 
necessity of charity. The actor, entering upon his 
career, should become a material individual embodi- 
ment of that idea. 

Something concerning the base intrusions that enter 
unjustly upon the actors' domicile. We often hear a 
spectator viewing a play make some such comment 

as this: "Isn't that just like " (naming some 

distinctive type of countryman in a Northern, East- 
ern, Southern or Western district of our own land; 
or perhaps some character of foreign locality and 
extraction). Such a remark is a compliment to the 
artist simulating that special character. Except in 
very few instances, to replace that artistic exhibition 
by substituting the native product, untutored in the 
art of dramatic personation, is to mar, by its crude 
realism, the just simulation of the original, that only 
the able exponent of characterization and expression 



—10— 

can truthfully reveal. It cannot be denied that in some 
rare cases persons associated with incidents in real 
life and employed to reproduce them on the stage, 
possess a sufficient degree of histrionic ability to be 
moulded into an acceptable representation of the 
events thus transplaced ; but such cases are rare. Yet 
to-day in America we find the actors' vocation con- 
fronted by many such instances as referred to above. 
Thus, many individuals who have attained promi- 
nence through various channels of notoriety, — by 
fistic skill, social scandal, sensational escapades, and 
many other means, — are sought and approached by 
managers who employ a certain crew of sensational 
playwrights, for the mere purpose of the base ad- 
vantage that such irregular practices present for im- 
mediate theatrical speculation. Some of the notoriety 
thus bargained for may find in its committer a cer- 
tain amount of native talent for the stage; enough 
to justify its use as a medium to transplace from 
life to mimicry the original participant and events 
transpired. Origin nor position should never preju- 
dice promoter nor spectator, provided the incumbent 
is truly gifted with the attributes essential to an 
adequate exhibition, and if he has been properly edu- 
cated to their most fitting use. But this condition 
is not often found. The exponent of such exhibitions 
as we have just referred to, is too often a person 
ill-mannered, uncouth, unlearned and unfit generally 
to be precipitated upon the scenes of an institution 
whose exponents should ever be men and women 
properly prepared and seriously inclined to promote 
at all times and to the end, the best purposes of the 
high mission it sets forth. The playwright who will 
hew and build out of, and around, such pulpous 



—11— 

material is a menace to society, as is the manager who 
exhibits it. As to the actors who engage in such 
brainless eruption, it would be wiser if they sought 
the field to till and hoe, than to become immersed in 
obscure publicity under the deluge of such lavarous 
verbosity. 

It is not necessary to turn to the many apt illustra- 
tions of this abuse of the actor's art that constantly 
substantiate the truth of the foregoing remarks; but 
I am going to add a brief illustrative mention of the 
greediness of some managers to seize upon every 
opportunity of a possible enrichment of their treasury, 
regardless of the more lasting policy of encouragement 
to the highest degree of the vocations of playwright 
and actor. This avariciousness is generally cloaked 
in the disguise of " realistic touches." 

Not very long ago a genial citizen, a humble lay- 
man (one who for nearly half a century was a loyal 
retainer and warm-hearted enthusiast of the thousands 
of men who have entered and pursued one of the 
highest institutions of learning in the world), was dis- 
suaded, so it was reported, from the intercessions of 
endeared relationship by the selfish interests of theatri- 
cal venture, and was dragged from the natural stage 
of his simple triumphs, the truly realistic scene wherein 
he trod, to lend an unaffected touch of realism to an 
environment of artificial resemblance. Dazed by the 
glare of unreality, this merry old character who had 
had so unwisely forced upon him this strangeness, 
therein failed as totally as he had theretofore tri- 
umphed in the daily scenes of his untutored practice. 
Such a character developed and subjected to the art 
of simulation could not fail to obtain recognition by 
its introduction, if not in the vital motive of the play, 



—12— 

at least as an episodical adjunct. The manager plac- 
ing upon the stage such incongruity is either ignorant 
of his obligation to the institution he would promote, 
or wilfully unheedful of its best protection, and of 
his proper duty to the actor in a just regard for the 
maintenance of the true quality of his importance. 
But not until the individual actor is brought to a 
fitting realization of his true quality of importance, 
and worthily adheres to it, can he ever expect to be 
highly judged and approved by others. 

I am the actor's friend, always; but not often 
his sympathizer. To benefit his condition or his art 
tending towards high ideals and attainment, I would 
unceasingly bend my best endeavor, tire and wear 
every nerve in my body. In such devotion rests the 
idealism and true spirit of emulation that would em- 
body in its own truth the fixed and lasting charge 
of the Actors' Fund of America. Optimism should 
be our faith, idealism our hope ; the path we trudge to 
deserve these, — charity! 



Number Four of " Stage Affairs," appearing Feb- 
ruary 5, 1907, concerns: 

THE STAGE MANAGER, 

HIS DECAYING POWER. 



I 

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7 190? 
i ^Capyrlffht Entry 



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Stage Affairs in America Today* 

—BY- 
ALLEN DAVENPORT. 



IV. 
THE STAGE MANAGER 

HIS DECAYING POWER. 

Except in a few rare instances, the stage manager 
of to-day (as that title is generally understood) is 
too often a person of small knowledge, less culture, 
little experience and weak ability when compared to 
what a proper estimate of that position should be 
and the positive qualities that its incumbent should 
possess. For this office (the undisputed executive 
head of the stage department of the theatre) should 
be selected a gentleman of sufficient years, experience, 
ability, learning and culture to at once command and 
hold the respect and concurrent obedience of all his 
co-laborers. While the stage manager, in the pro- 
mulgation of his ideas and theories, and in an in- 
sistent exaction of a faithful practice of them, should 
always stand firm in the courage of his convictions, 
at the same time this condition should always be 
established and maintained through the legitimate out- 
growth of requisite qualities (the possession of which 



—2— 

has gained for him his position), and never a mere 
assertion of his ideas, and, whether right or wrong, 
a rude enforcement of obedience through arrogant 
autocracy. 

The stage manager should judiciously and with ar- 
tistic discernment exercise the firm hand that dis- 
tributes, developes and harmonizes the colors that have 
been selected for the picture. But he should never 
presume to make nor correct the substance of that 
color. Like the painter and the sculptor, he should 
select only properly prepared mediums, substantial 
colors and perfect forms, with which to animate his 
canvas or his marble. If the mediums through which 
he must work are inefficient and imperfect, he should 
cast them aside, and substitute others that are genuine. 
To attempt to make the former more fitting, or to 
correct their inefficiency, is not within the province 
of the stage manager. Unlearned and incompetent 
as he too often is in a proper distribution, development 
and harmonization — in an efficient handling — of the 
material, in the use of which he should otherwise be 
a master, for him to try to outstrip such ignorance 
by a presumptuous attempt to temper and improve 
the medium at his command, even if that medium be 
not efficient itself, is but to hinder and destroy any 
natural genuineness that its crudity may possess, and 
thereby render it far more unserviceable than origi- 
nally found. 

The stage manager should be the commissioned 
officer over trained soldiers; the accomplished con- 
ductor leading skilled instrumentalists. His care is 
the attainment of the nearest point to perfection in 
the ensemble. While he may suggest, and further 
enforce, a different rendering of some one part, at 



-variance with the instrumentalist's own conception, but 
done to more fully effect an harmonious whole, still 
it would be unpardonable effrontery to attempt to 
teach that artist how to play his instrument. He may 
discharge him if he is incompetent; but he must 
not rob him of that possession acquired through prep- 
aration, study and finish that has gained him the right 
to perform as a skilled part of the whole company, 
and bespeaks him an artist. But therein, lamentable 
though it be, lies the strongest weapon of defence in 
possession of a certain class of over-riding stage man- 
agers of to-day. 

The actor suffers from such because in America 
there is no adequate medium of instruction in the art 
of acting of sufficient continuance in systematic train- 
ing, or a proper condition of final judgment as to a 
competency of whether or no one may be allowed 
to rightfully profess the practice of the art of acting. 
In the absence of any such criterion the stage manager 
too often insists upon an automatic imitation of his 
own ignorance, mannerisms, limitations and pretence. 
But as this is generally done in the service, and under 
full sanction of some one still more utterly void of 
any sense of artistic proportions, the " bluff " goes, 
and the actor, even though he be possessed of infinitely 
more skill and taste than the awkward automaton he 
is made to copy, must surrender his intelligence, ex- 
perience, and often his accomplished art to this per- 
son, who, in his desire to " make good " with the 
individual or company engaging him, ruthlessly un- 
heeds the actor's superior ability, temperament and 
sensitiveness, and often jeopardizes any chance of ar- 
tistic, and sometimes financial, success by the brazen 
enforcement of his charlatanical direction. Of course, 



there is the other side to the question, but regarding 
the actor and his art I shall write at length in later 
chapters of this volume; let us here consider further 
the subject of the stage manager of to-day, his con- 
sequence, or, rather, inconsequence, as regards the 
general aspect of his office at the present time. 

A company is organized and a play put in re- 
hearsal under the supervision of a director, producer, 
actor-manager, or whatever he may be called. There 
has been engaged for the company a stage manager. 
Many times the " business " and " situations " of this 
play have been carefully thought out and arranged 
beforehand, and are subjected to few alterations dur- 
ing the progress of rehearsals. Many more times the 
play undergoes innumerable changes from first to final 
rehearsal. Sometimes, but not often, a play is, to a 
very great extent, staged by the intuitive instinct and 
impressionable imagination of the one in authority. 
This is rare, and, of course, hazardous and uncertain, 
but such cases have existed. During these rehearsals, 
the stage manager sits humbly at the supervisor's desk, 
manuscript in hand, altering the text here and there, 
changing " business," making notes of effects to be 
used and attended to " off stage," taking instructions 
and orders from the director concerning various mat- 
ters, and when the actors have become " rough per- 
fect," that is, have laid aside their parts, he facilitates 
progress by prompting them in their lines. He has 
observed the situations entailing the use of music and 
made himself acquainted with the curtain cues. In 
the management of many of these various duties he 
is obliged to, and does, when the regular performances 
have commenced, solicit the assistance of actors not 
on the stage engaging in the scene, and also the ser- 



—5— 

vices of the mechanics employed by the management 
of the company. Of course, this is absolutely neces- 
sary in all companies of any distinction at all. The 
stage manager often acts a part in the play ; sometimes 
more than one, in theatrical parlance known as a 
" double." He assigns the dressing-rooms to the 
members of the company, and when a musical director 
is not employed by the company travelling, instructs 
the resident orchestra concerning the music used in 
the play. 

All these duties in themselves, independent of the 
task of directing the preliminary rehearsals, are ar- 
duous, important and responsible ones, and when faith- 
fully and devotedly performed worthy of deep respect 
and sufficient remuneration ; and it is fitting that they 
should be incumbent on no inexperienced, unable, non- 
esteemed person. That they too often are is a condi- 
tion in stage affairs to-day that is truly deplorable. 
The company opens its season. The one who has 
superintended the rehearsals generally goes along with 
the company until the play is running smoothly. At 
the end of that time the entire management of the 
stage is surrendered to the one regularly appointed to 
that position, the subject of our discussion in this chap- 
ter. In some instances we find a man sufficiently ex- 
perienced, able, courteous, tactful and justly authori- 
tative to gain at once obedience and commendation 
from the entire company. Such is a happy state in- 
deed. But unfortunately this condition is rare, for too 
often this stage manager becomes the mean serving 
man of the business representative, the star, a relative, 
or some other one or two members of the company 
whose mean flatteries have readily swayed his meaner 
sense of equity. Or perhaps some one whose commer- 



cial value has been particularly impressed upon him by 
the owners of the theatrical vehicle or combination in 
question, and to whom, in his total lack and disregard 
of any sense of justice or adequate possession of either 
stamina or intelligence, he equally fawns in mean de- 
sign for personal aggrandizement. His conduct soon 
becomes a hindrance to honest endeavor and artistic 
purpose; an outrage on decency and manhood, and 
a base mockery to the highest meant significance that 
his title proclaims. To enumerate the countless ways 
that such a person may assume, in arrogant charla- 
tanry and rank disposition, the duties of his office, 
would be a useless expenditure of time and to no 
profit in any direction whatsoever; but a general out- 
line of such a one's duties, and his usual unfitness for 
them as contrasted to the highest results possible in 
an able conduction of them by a worthy incumbent, 
will not be superficial at this point of our endeavor 
to place simple facts and plain truths before our 
readers. 

Nearly every company of any importance carries 
its own scenery. It is in the care and direction of 
a carpenter as regards its transportation and the pro- 
cess of setting and " striking " ; that is, taking down 
and removing one scene preparatory to putting an- 
other in its place. The carpenter is under the juris- 
diction of the stage manager as regards what shall be 
used in the setting of the stage, and in the distribu- 
tion of the properties employed in the conduction of 
the scene. Once this information has been imparted 
and firmly settled upon, so long as the carpenter per- 
forms his work properly, the position allows of no 
interference, nor will its holder permit of any pre- 
sumptuous instruction by the stage manager in the 



— 7— 

discharge of his duties. It is so with all the mechan- 
ical departments of the theatre. That is right, and 
so long as the heads of these departments are men 
of serious purpose and mind their own affairs, and do 
not exert unwarranted officiousness in the discharge 
of their duties, and the stage manager is equally 
mindful of the proper conduction of his office, there 
is no trouble. This fitting balance is most desirable. 
But when it is wanting, the condition arising is most 
annoying. 

Right here I wish to state that I believe in organized 
labor v/hen done for the purpose of self-improvement 
amongst its individuals, and to maintain a rightful 
claim for protection against indifferent appreciation 
and ill-sufficient wages, and with the show of a re- 
spectful spirit of cheerful compliance with any sen- 
sible adjustment of differences that may arise from 
time to time between employer and employee. But 
for the union of organized labor engendered in the 
undue influence exercised by some too ambitious lead- 
ers, misunderstanding and often unheeding the fact 
that in all human strife there must ever exist an in- 
equality in the distribution of worldly possessions, and 
not knowing, acknowledging nor striving to attain 
those attributes of character and gained understand- 
ing that would establish sooner any desired approxi- 
mation to a genuine condition of social equality than 
the ready acceptance of unweighed vaunting, and in 
this misunderstanding suffering no thought nor reason 
to invade his mind to temper any sense of fancied 
injustice, and in his ignorant obstinacy ruthlessly 
stagnating the industry of another, perhaps at the peril 
of lives, and at last finding himself alone the greatest 
sufferer, — for such a union of organized labor, all 



privileges of press and public, and high enforcement 
of law and order should speak out in unmistaken 
words of unretractable detestation. 

It is not my purpose herein to fix in the mind of 
any reader the germ of anticipate disturbance fore- 
telling eventual harmfulness to the best interests of 
the theatre. To the contrary, I would commend, in 
its main effectualness, the well-directed forces of the 
organized body of theatrical mechanics, and in the 
highest honesty of my deep devotion to the theatre 
entreat its followers to labor ever for the condition 
of harmony in their co-operate skill in embellishing 
the beautiful designs of the institution in which at 
the present day they play so prominent a part. It 
is with a desire to see this condition carefully pre- 
served, that herein I would entreat this necessary 
adjunct to the highest development of the theatre 
to guard against and crush any evident and growing 
spirit of indifference to the attainment of best results 
by an over-zealous adherence to the too often unjust 
demands of the unionism of organized labor, albeit a 
sense of honest belief may pervade its unenlight- 
ened direction. 

To-day when mechanical ingenuity in its varied 
forms, and " sensational features " dependent on the 
skill and dexterity of the mechanics furnishing and 
effecting them, play so important a part in the prepa- 
ration and exhibition of a theatrical vehicle, and which 
are selected in many cases with greater care and labor 
than the artists to be employed in the revealing of the 
author's diction, it is not hard to understand that 
such responsibility, falling upon men saturated with 
the boisterous clamor of their associate constituency, 
should often lead to a condition of indiscreet conten- 



_ 9— 

tion and unmerited importance. At this juncture is 
most needed the presence of the stage manager in pos- 
session of the truly high qualities essential to the dis- 
tinction of his office, encouraged and upheld by the 
business representative in whose hands is placed the 
protection of the property thus jeopardized. But it is 
seldom that either of the last mentioned two condi- 
tions is apparent. 

The stage manager of to-day is in quality of service 
hardly more than a mechanic in degree of dignity as 
concerns the routine of his office. It may be truly 
said that the office often proves an immediate line of 
promotion from the grade of mechanic; for it exists 
to-day a trust of no real distinction in the direction 
of artistic accomplishment requiring exceptional in- 
telligence, talent and refinement. The mechanic has 
at least served an apprenticeship, and in so far as 
his duties may extend is truly a skilled artisan. And 
so to-day instead of finding a man equal or superior 
to his environments in knowledge and culture, we too 
often endure a person lacking in all the essentials 
necessary to the proper solicitation of command, obe- 
dience and esteem from those over whom he is placed 
in authority. His views of the institution that sus- 
tains him, and of the profession for which he clamors 
pretended favor, seldom rise above a common under- 
standing shared by the vast majority wavering on an 
indivisible condition that immerges in its nameless 
vapidity, the widely marked difference of the con- 
tradistinctive titles, — artist and artisan, — and that 
readily applies to every phase and promotive project 
of the theatre, the common term — business. 

Thus, the actor of to-day, striving for anything high 
in the designs of the theatre, filled with a desire to 



—10— 

labor in a field of artistic endeavor, serious, studious 
and justly ambitious, is often overridden, unjustly- 
censured, and many times openly insulted by this whif- 
fling autocrat, void of any sense of justice or proper 
manhood, and totally incapable of, and indifferent to, 
any just appreciation of tact or discernment which 
might enable him to separate and properly estimate 
in individual effort the opposite qualities, — reality of 
purpose, and falsity of pretence, — and duly reward 
the one and rebuke the other. The petty indignities 
suffered through the injustice of many so-called stage 
managers, such as the imprudent distribution of dress- 
ing rooms and the attendant abuses, the evident par- 
tialities, the insults and rebukes publicly posted on 
the call boards of the visited theatre, and many other 
injuries inflicted by these busy officials, are too con- 
temptuously distasteful to warrant the waste of a par- 
ticle of ink. Often he gradually shifts many of the 
most irksome duties on to an assistant, and not in- 
frequently to the property man of the company. Many 
times the transplacing of this power into such irra- 
tional, inexperienced channels, augments and aggra- 
vates the more the already too unbearable condition 
of abused trust. 

A few years ago an actor of nearly sixty years' ser- 
vice on the stage (a creator of parts through forty 
years of New York reputation) was interrupted and 
reprimanded at a rehearsal most insultingly (by one 
of this class of stage managers) for an insignificant, 
inconsequential matter that bore no relation to any 
possible detriment to the play, nor author's intention 
of the part, that later was to be so masterly interpreted 
by this gentlemanly and finished old actor. The owner 
of the play confessed that this stage manager was 



—11— 

engaged solely through the astonishing ability he dis- 
played in organizing and managing the stage de- 
partments of numerous amateur companies in a large 
theatrical centre. Among amateurs of any conse- 
quence at all, there exists an undeniable acumen, cou- 
pled with superior intelligence, culture and refinement 
that is sadly lacking in the average condition of the 
professional actor in America to-day, whose only grace 
is in the advantage of repeated performances which 
lend finally a desirable smoothness and finish. The 
amateur is afforded no such opportunity. It is not 
a surprising feat to guarantee a commendable per- 
formance by intelligent amateurs. The professional 
coach feels the superior environments surrounding the 
best amateur organizations. He dares not inflict upon 
these ladies and gentlemen the offences he unmitigat- 
ingly commits when succumbing to the condition of 
professionalism in stage affairs in America to-day. 
The reason is only too palpable. The general average 
status of the actor to-day does not compel his best 
deportment and manners, and he furthermore has not 
that just appreciation of tact and discernment to in- 
telligently distinguish of their separate qualities. 

Stage affairs in America to-day make it possible 
for a man to remain permanently in a large theatrical 
centre and superintend the production of plays alone. 
A few men do this work sufficiently well to win the 
encomiums of managers by supplying in the place of 
methodical arrangement, sane evolvement, logical de- 
velopment and artistic finish, a feverish tension of ca- 
pricious ideas and whimsical actions; or by furnish- 
ing mean copies of indifferent originals. But most 
often the material furnished them is as feeble and 
inane as its producing agency. Anything of intrinsic 



—12— 

literary worth and high dramatic possibilities placed 
in such hands exposes at once their general unfitness 
for the sterling qualities of the position. It is through 
the encouragement to-day by monopolistic theatrical 
venture of this dualistic condition of inferior matter 
and inadequate producers that the high office of stage 
manager is now very nearly a lost power. 

It is agreeable and of ready willingness to state, 
that during the past few seasons there has been in- 
stalled in the office of general stage director, by one 
of the controlling powers of theatrical speculation, a 
man who is all that could be desired for the discharge 
of the true functions of the office of stage manager. 
Possessing the qualifications and superior talent essen- 
tial to the best execution of such a position; trained 
and prepared in all the fitting and appropriate 
branches of the drama from its most classic form, 
standard models, highest comedy, to the lightest tex- 
ture of farce; associated from his earliest theatrical 
life with the best tradition and experience could offer. 
Were the power through which he operates heedful or 
provident of the highest mission of the theatre, and 
this gentleman as faithful still to his ideals, the ad- 
herence to which has hitherto gained for him his dis- 
tinction and maintenance, what a strife for good in 
stage affairs in America to-day might ensue! But 
judging by the few years through which this stipula- 
tion has worked, we can discern no ray of light that 
would herald a belief that the dawn that follows would 
spread into any bright day of glorious future for the 
best desired ends of the drama. We can not but be- 
lieve that this adjunctive agent has been encased in 
the cogs of this great wheel (the power of whose 
machinery turns out drama as the mills the paper and 



—13— 

ink that sketch it), and that he has succumbed to the 
inevitable weakness that draws all minor factors into 
this to-day's common whirl of commercial greediness. 
Call him what you will, — manager, director, super- 
visor, or any significant title, — it is not the mere nom- 
inal stipulation we would correct, but the constantly 
degenerating condition that is endangering a proper 
authority and essential dignity in the vital force of the 
stage department of the institution of the theatre. It 
is between the highest development of this force and 
the ablest endeavors through honesty and integrity of 
business efficacy that the just balance of theatrical ex- 
position should ever swing. 



Number Five of " Stage Affairs," appearing Feb- 
ruary 12, 1907, concerns: 

THE THEATRE ORCHESTRA 

ITS ENFORCED PROTRUSIVE OBEDIENCE. 



a_ "-'right E»try 

ewss /\ xxc, 



Stage Affairs in America Today < 

—BY- 
ALLEN DAVENPORT. 



V. 
THE THEATRE ORCHESTRA. 

ITS ENFORCED PROTRUSIVE OBEDIENCE. 

The theatre orchestra, under the leadership of a 
skilled, earnest and experienced director, is a most 
necessary and powerful adjunct towards the attain- 
ment of high results in the conduction of a theatre 
and its stage performances, and when its members 
are truly proficient and attentive to the proper dis- 
charge of their duties, they should at all times com- 
mand the respect, sympathy and support of both 
business and stage authorities front and back of the 
curtain line. In all theatres of any distinction what- 
soever, the orchestras are composed of instrumental- 
ists who may with justification lay honest claim to 
the title — artist. These musicians have prepared, 
progressed and perfected their special art to that de- 
gree that truly entitles them to rightfully profess and 
practice it. Such attainment has been at the expense 
6i many years of labor and a liberal expenditure of 
money. Truly, in an impartial estimate, can this be 



—2— 

rightfully said of at least nine-tenths of the actors 
in America today who are clamoring for place and 
recognition in the predominant element of the stage 
— the play? 

Just so long as the musician properly maintains his 
special function, he should be held in proper dignity, 
consideration and credence. But the music should not, 
however, be any more than an adjunctive force, sub- 
servient to, augmenting and embellishing the chief 
feature of the theatre — the play. As such it is an 
important factor, and may readily add to, or detract 
from the general value of a play (according to the 
measure of its importance) by the congruity or in- 
congruity of its connection, by a complemental or in- 
sufficient condition of instruments, and by the adequacy 
or insufficiency of its rendition. Too little importance 
is placed upon the condition of music in theatres in 
America today! Too little regard is shown for its 
congruity, completeness and adequacy as a necessary 
auxiliary for a better furtherance of the play. There 
are a few theatres where these conditions approximate 
satisfaction, and some travelling combinations worth- 
ily adhere to a high standard in the employment of 
music as an embellishment to the play, but with the 
great majority of managements the best functions of 
the orchestra are seriously impaired by an enforced 
protrusive obedience to the demands of the authorities 
in their estimate as to what the play requires and the 
public wants. 

The theatre orchestra of today too often forsakes 
its proper office of graceful subserviency to vie with 
the predominant factor of the theatre, the play, in its 
contribution to the evening's entertainment. This is 



true of orchestras in theatres of first-class distinction. 
Doubtless there are instances when both the material 
Offered, and the quality of its rendition by the musi- 
cians surpasses in point of genuine merit that of the 
play and players. But the fact that the orchestra 
sometimes so outbids the stage performance in its un- 
intentional appeal for public approval, does not right- 
fully warrant a wilful usurpation of its proper uses, 
nor an insistent firmness on the part of the authorities 
in front to encourage and maintain such pleasing im- 
pudence. In my observance of stage affairs, I have 
seen few instances where any direct blame for the 
existence of the above-mentioned condition could be 
charged to the leader of the orchestra. 

If appropriate entr'acte numbers have not been pro- 
vided by the visiting company, the resident leader 
must select his own programme. And often in so 
doing he is instructed to play something lively be- 
tween the acts ; something to " wake 'em up." Con- 
sequently it is no uncommon occurrence to hear im- 
mediately before some act of serious import, religious 
solemnity or tragic awfulness, a potpourri of " pop- 
ular airs " with a grand finish by the dexterous skill 
of the artist on the vulgarly pleasing xylophone, with 
the unescapable encore or two. It is a fact which 
cannot be gainsaid that renditions of that calibre are 
never rudely interrupted in an impatient desire to 
begin the next act. They are often highly enjoyed 
and appreciated even by the artistic authority who 
flashes the footlights, and who, at other times, cuts 
short at a most inappropriate measure some highly 
ambitious and worthy rendering by the musicians of 
the theatre, who in turn are often called upon to fill 



-4— 

in some tedious wait, which, although often unavoid- 
able, is frequently occasioned by the irregular, un- 
tactful and self-centred practises of discontented, des- 
potic and vainglorious stars and stage managers. To 
this duty the artists of the orchestra gracefully and 
otherwise comply. 

But there is a palpable indiscretion and inexcusable 
offence habitually committed by the musicians of the 
theatre orchestra which is as unpardonable, and in 
view of the acknowledged condition of its subserviency 
to that of the player, more to be censured than any 
infringement made by the latter on the rights of the 
musician. I refer to the disrespectful and annoying 
custom of the musician in abruptly and uncere- 
moniously leaving and returning to his desk during 
the progress and action of the play. It is often done 
at most inopportune moments, and with utter disre- 
gard and inconsideration for the actor. And no doubt 
to the small annoyance of the nearest auditors. His 
eagerness to seek the relaxation that the music room 
affords is equally as precipitate as is his hurried tardi- 
ness in resuming his desk, arranging his light and 
music, picking up his instrument, and as abruptly and 
unceremoniously resuming his task as he had left off 
with it. During the progress of the play, when not 
engaged in the performance of his duty, the musician's 
condition should be that of passive subordinacy. 

I do not believe in the custom of orchestral selec- 
tions between the acts of a play, and most especially 
when they partake of the wildest forms of incongruity, 
and ambitious proportions entirely out of all possi- 
bilities of the limited and meagre distribution of in- 
struments. If a play be worthy of any consideration, 



—5— 

fitting music should be employed to truly embellish 
and beautify its theme and variations ; and an orches- 
tra of sufficient numbers and individual proficiency 
should be engaged to properly render its highest sig- 
nificance. And I believe that the functions of such 
an organization should be completely entrusted to the 
discernment of some capable leader, with untampered 
authority to adjust or augment the condition of his 
band to the highest requirements of the music to be 
employed. I believe in an appropriate overture to 
the play ; fitting preludes to its acts ; characteristic 
meaning and coloring to the incidental employment 
of music, and a foretellant suggestion, in the ante- 
cedent finales, prophetic of the catastrophe of the play ; 
and then following, a subsequent condition of appro- 
priateness in the arrangement of music that may serve 
the purposes of a postlude to a fitting finale in the 
musical accompaniment of the play. The intermission 
between the acts should be given over to a discussion 
of the play and players (or to such conversation as the 
auditor chooses). 

Today the rude indifference to the serious efforts 
of the theatre orchestra between the acts is a mockery 
to its best intentioned purpose. Its present condition 
satisfies neither critical nor uncritical. Its proper 
functions are ignored and abused; and its condition 
of forced irrelevancy to the motive and action of the 
play makes it an adjunct more fittingly to be dispensed 
with by managers and actors of any sense of just pro- 
portions in dramatic exhibitions, than a worthy factor 
of embellishing import, indispensable to the highest 
designs of the play, and the natural medium of ex- 
pression to keep in unbroken, harmonious continuity 



its predominant theme. Today when all conditions 
tend towards marked and increasing facility in dexter- 
ously setting and " striking " the scenery, there is no 
excuse for long waits between the acts. There should 
be a decided tendency to shorten them, and by the 
assistance of fitting music, to more closely connect the 
incidents of the preceding act to that which is to 
follow, and so to neatly dovetail each separate part 
into one harmonious entirety. We should banish from 
further chance the unfair methods of the manager 
to eke out, by such protracted waits, an ordinary per- 
formance of an all too evident condition of briefness 
in his play. By dispensing with the long-established 
custom of an orchestral number, and to adhere instead 
to a reasonable degree of brevity, would stir the stage 
folk to the necessity of abandoning many whims and 
vanities, ill-moods and tempers that find an outlet in 
the abuse of the " between-acts " respite. And still 
further, it would encourage to better effort the work- 
ing staff of the theatre, who often are censured for 
inactivity, but seldom considered when made to wait 
upon the idiosyncrasies of the sometime erratic stage 
folk. 

I believe that the manager and actor owe to the 
public a proper adjustment of this condition of " stage 
wait." No longer should the orchestra be made the 
compellent go-between, in allaying this imposition by 
the interpolation of unsuitable selections, often to be 
briefly cut short without consideration or consistency. 
Exalt the music of the theatre and put it to some 
genuine worth! Maintain in the orchestra a comple- 
ment of instruments that shall adequately and with 
congruity assist to preserve the continuity of the play 



— 7— 

and enhance its worth. Its general purposes now as a 
divertisement to the play seem as incongruous and 
prodigal as would the introduction of miscellaneous 
readings by a band of elocutionists between the acts 
of an opera performance for the mere sake of variety. 
If opera managements can approximately control the 
" stage wait," dramatic authorities should be able to 
do likewise. 

The orchestra should occupy its present location in 
the theatre, but be sunk lower, and obscured from the 
audience by a portable partition, oval shape, rising 
from its outer floor border, and curving until it meet 
and join the level of the stage, where apertures should 
be supplied, immediately front and back of the foot- 
lights, to sufficiently convey the volume of tone neces- 
sary to the demands of dramatic eflectualness. A 
code of incandescent light signals governing the cues 
( red for " warning," white to " take up," and blue 
to " leave off," with speaking wire for accompanying 
instructions as to tempi and other varying music 
forms) should be established between the stage man- 
ager and orchestra leader. That is all stage detail, 
and should be placed in the responsible care of its 
proper authority. The vicious custom of " flashing 
the foots," and sometimes audibly instructing the 
leader from the stage, should be totally eliminated. 
Any vocal selection employed in the action of a drama 
should find its accompaniment in the environments of 
the stage scene wherein it is introduced. In the event 
of opera performances, this portable partition could 
readily be removed to preserve the essential relation 
between conductor and singer, and to give full scope 
to the predominant element of all genuine opera, — its 



music, as heard through the art of composer, singer 
and musician, to which must ever remain in subserv- 
iency the necessary adjunctive elements of dramatic 
action and stage display. The manager makes no 
hesitancy in placing the orchestra under the stage 
to add a few miserly dollars to his treasury when 
extraordinary business is being enjoyed. Why not do 
it for all time, and do it right ? As the orchestra is 
arranged now, more tact should be used in arranging 
the music of the play, or the leader be empowered to 
engage extra musicians when music is to be employed 
both front and back during the progress of any one 
act in the play. As it exists now, it remains a custom 
impolite, clumsy, and disturbing, and the orchestra in 
the foreground is a blemish to the highest approximate 
attainment of illusiveness in the stage picture, claim- 
ing as it does the fencible ground, that must of its 
sightly importance, arrest a complete visual access 
to the play. 

The exhibition and maintenance of rational musical 
entertainment, as a balance to dramatic divertisement, 
is as desirable and needful to a healthy condition of 
the theatre, and a counteractive benefit to the commu- 
nity, as is the reciprocal wise distribution of sunshine 
and rain to the land and its inhabitants. But an over- 
oppressiveness of either is, beyond argument, injurious, 
and when that oppression partakes of a lavarous form 
of severity, it is dangerous, and often deadly. The 
stage today sizzles with lavarous musical matter. It 
is alive with disordered precipitantness from unac- 
countable sources. There should be a standard of 
special qualification required of the composers and in- 
terpreters of musical entertainment. Today it is, for 



—9— 

the most part, in the hands of empiricism. Composers, 
singers, actors and conductors alike. There are, of 
course, a few exponents of these vocations, particu- 
larly in the cases of composer and conductor, who find 
justly merited recognition and employment for their 
skill ; but the general condition of vocal and comedy 
effort is in a very distorted state of impoverishment. 
The condition of the material they labor to interpret 
is partly to blame for this. There are numerous con- 
cocters of these so-called musical comedies, posing 
as composers, with no fundamental knowledge of lyri- 
cal or musical composition, or an ability even to write 
on the stave a simple melody (sometimes not even 
with the aid of an instrument). He must seek the 
services of a trained musician. Although there are 
still many capable conductors being maintained by 
first-class managers, there are nevertheless many who 
can claim no more right to their position than an in- 
complete knowledge of the technique of the piano 
might grant them. And yet such boldly presume to 
train singers and direct skilled musicians. And all 
these conditions find favor and encouragement with the 
theatrical speculator. This state of affairs can not be 
corrected until the manager assumes his trust honestly, 
and admits of no solicitations to his offices that have 
not qualified for their separate arts. How can there 
be rational musical entertainment and light opera when 
the arts of composer and singer (their predominant 
forces) are usurped by the charlatanry of unqualified 
substitution, and the comedy supplied mostly through 
the mediums of freakishness, vocal and acrobatic con- 
tortion, coarseness and impossible dialects? The only 
intrinsic conditions that keep such a flimsy melange 



—10^ 

from hopeless disj ointment are the qualified arts of 
musician, scene painter and skilled mechanic. The 
theatre today is indeed a " show business." 

In concluding this chapter I mention briefly a con- 
dition existing in the fraternal body of musicians which 
threatens to impede and stay the best aims of its indi- 
viduals, and through such enforced stagnacy, must 
slowly, but constantly, corrupt the entire body. The 
musician of the theatre today, be he of mediocre qual- 
ity or of superior worth in the exhibition of his art, 
is seized, held and driven by the despotic hand and 
lash of unionism. He may be of exceptional merit, 
and most essential to a high order of music in the 
theatre, and still be held momentarily subject to the 
arrogant dictatorship of a man many degrees his in- 
ferior, but possessed of the power to jeopardize 
another's living by an unreasonable enforcement of 
this power, thus compromising the other's standing, 
restricting the freedom of his art, and placing upon 
the finer vocation of the musician the same menial 
condition of dependency and subserviency in common 
with many lower and coarser fields of labor, whose 
ranks are mostly filled with unfortunate men, ignorant 
of the flimsiness of the standard they are following, 
and stubborn in their determination to remain thus un- 
enlightened. The musician can never expect to find 
in the honest promoter and patron of art, just appre- 
ciation, sympathy and support, so long as he binds 
himself to the fetters of narrow dictation which seeks 
to unjustly interrupt and restrict the privileges, prac- 
tices and freedom of his art. Such a condition can 
react but temporarily to the embarrassment, incon- 
venience and injury of that same promoter and patron, 



—11— 

•*— the benefactors of the individual submitting to such 
injudicious jurisdiction of salaried meddlers. The sub- 
ject of such gullibility loses most, and often all. A man 
becomes but an ass in leading-strings in giving heed 
to such impromptu knavery. He is unworthy to 
adorn any art, especially one whose sphere of activity 
is universal, and in the proper devotion and practice 
of which his own self-reliant and individual worthiness 
alone should control the highest and wisest desire for 
the exercise of its proper functions. 



Number Six of " Stage Affairs," appearing Feb- 
ruary 19, 1907, concerns : 

THE DRAMATIC CRITIC. 

THE RIGHTFUL CENSOR J BUT NOT MERELY BY " COUR- 
TESY OF THE THEATRE." 



FEB IS 190 



Two Copies Receive* j 
FEB 20 WOT \ 

l u/03. ! 
L . - „s ?py a » 1 




Stage Affairs in America Today, 

—BY- 
ALLEN DAVENPORT. 



VI. 
THE DRAMATIC CRITIC. 

THE RIGHTFUL CENSOR; BUT NOT MERELY BY THE 
" COURTESY OF THE THEATRE." 

The very speculative nature of the theatre in its 
public appeal for patronage is, of that fact alone, 
warrant enough for the imperative need of an es- 
tablished safeguard against imposture, impropriety, 
and impureness. The appointing of a censor through 
municipal preferment is not, in this country at least, 
either wise or practical. No other petty practice so 
quickly unhinges judgment, equitableness and duty, 
as that of permitting free access to the environments 
of the theatre, and the influences of its people. In 
many theatres scattered throughout America, the city 
or town authorities are still allowed the privilege of 
free admission to its amusement places; and it is in 
readily granting such privilege that the local man- 
ager finds his aptest license to exhibit his wares. 
Although there might be found many men who would 



—2— 

with unswerving duty, equity and wisdom fulfil 
with sound proficiency the office of public censor in 
the affairs of the theatre, notwithstanding, the same 
spirit of leniency, readily acquiescent to the environ- 
ments of the stage, would be liable to invite unwise 
practice, perhaps to a dangerous degree, in the trust 
of a regularly appointed censor to the theatre. This 
disposition is apparent in many instances concerning 
the charge of the dramatic critic; for frequently he 
becomes such merely " by courtesy of the theatre." 
Nevertheless, the genuine dramatic critic, — that re- 
liable, worthy and much to be respected criterion, a 
person fearless, catholic and impartial in the art of 
criticism, one upon whose judgment we may rest reas- 
onably secure in any subsequent inclination to wisely 
regulate our decisions, — such an one is, and ever 
should be (by every sense of a personal fitness, and 
the publicity that his station contains) the people's 
rightful censor. But he should be free from any 
bond of qualified courteous solicitation ; and the organ 
that instates him should hold no covetous concern- 
ment of mere advertising gainfulness. 

Viewed in a broad, general sense, the condition of 
dramatic art in America today, as regards both writ- 
ing and acting, is truly ,- 

" an unweeded garden, 
. . . things rank and gross in nature 

Possess it merely." 
Doubtless there are writers who might accomplish 
worthy things if made free and encouraged to re- 
veal their highest flights of mental imagery. Some 
actors there are today battling against almost insur- 
mountable barriers to maintain a well ' established 



—3— 

standard of artistic endeavor ; but generally considered, 
all conditions of art aim in the theatre in America 
today are immerged in the irresistible, potent 
whirlpool of commercialism. Consequently it is not 
strange that the art of dramatic criticism, (bearing 
as it does in the administration of its offices, a signal 
power towards the furtherance or restriction of the 
condition of the art it seeks to exalt and adjust), 
should feel the rotary force of this vortical authority, 
which, in the compellent nature of its abnormal supre- 
macy, must as readily engulf all subservient condi- 
tions. 

Dramatic criticism has been helplessly slumping into 
mere journalism. The desirable services of the able 
and accomplished writer of critical review is more and 
more each day giving place to the arrogant demand 
for the unenlightened, complaisant notice of the ver- 
satile journalist. Two reasons in the main are re- 
sponsible for this alarming condition. First, the ab- 
normal development of monopolistic venture, in its 
enormous controlment demands the necessity of 
abnormally regulating and controlling the mediums, 
which, in their normal functions, stand a menace to 
the despotic, irregular practices of monopolists, whose 
energies are impelled solely by the force of commer- 
cialism. And in the second place, through the in- 
creasing disinclination of able writers towards serious 
comment, not only through a manifest growing in- 
indifference and abuse of its office, (jeopardizing its 
dignity and worthiness), but also because of the feeble 
and inconsequential matter promoted by this state of 
monopoly, and a consequent decadent condition of the 
vocation of the necessary exposition of such material, 
— the actor. 



If there is no special worth in the matter under 
consideration, then is there all the more need of the 
critic. But it is in the exhibition of such doubtful 
stuff that the manager must exercise his ablest powers 
of advertising skill and press work. He must pay 
well to advertise such wares. In return he demands 
said — the truth, if compatible with commercial inter- 
ests, if not, something that at least will not impair the 
marketable prospects of the material in question. 
This condition allowed, the critic's mission ceases. He 
who would yield to this stipulation proclaims himself 
a paid hireling to maintain merely an established 
vicious policy; a condition that of course endangers 
his worthy office, admitting his surrender to any just 
claim of independent thought and action, qualities 
that the exaltedness of his trust should ever hold. 

Not even under such conditions should we blame 
the public that it still is persistent in a liberal patron- 
age. Of all factors swaying the theatre it is the least 
and last to be censured. It is the outward visible 
condition of the theatre that ever confronts it, and 
whatsoever the promoters choose to have that condi- 
tion, good, bad or indifferent, the great multitude will 
ever voluntarily seek. The public is truly faithful 
and indulgent. More so to the theatre than any- 
thing else that solicits a measure of their earnings. 
In buying merchandise and finding imperfections, a 
remittance is asked, or equivalent demanded, and it 
is invariably allowed. Theatrical material today is 
mostly mere merchandise; but there is no substantial 
means of reparation for its imperfections and unsat- 
isfactory interpretations. But the true condition of 
the critic, if firmly re-instated and upheld, might fur- 



nish a safeguard against any unwise investment, if 
this public would but seize, respect and obey it! Es- 
tablish a confiding disposition to hear and heed — the 
critic, the rightful censor, and thereby compel the 
manager to shield himself behind that barrier he often- 
times ventures to assail. Oblige him to say, " The 
critics of the press told you what we had, why didn't 
you keep away?" But no, the manager invites your 
confidence, imposes upon your indulgence and faith- 
fulness, and tells you that the critic doesn't know; 
he bars him from his theatre; he appears before his 
curtain and assails him. Whom is the public to be- 
lieve? The total non-existence of the former, or a 
desire on the managers' part to respect any such con- 
dition, (even did it exist), but rather to completely 
remove it, conduces and viciously prompts the defiant 
spirit displayed in the latter. The same force that 
seizes upon and controls all conditions of the theatre, 
the monopolistic force of commercialism, also sways 
and controls the instrument through which the critic 
must operate — the great news organs of the day. 
There the condition of criticism, generally speaking, 
waits upon, and is subservient to, the same policy 
that in common importance sways the general trend 
of the news organ of which it is a part 

Today in the great daily newspapers, we can read 
with naked eye from across the street, the " horrors " 
of the hour. We too often strain our eyes and repair 
to strong lenses to find the " beautiful " things. It is 
no exaggeration to say, that often, in looking upon a 
single page of a newspaper, we might see, at one gaze, 
the pictures of two men, one perhaps the likeness of a 
newly installed clergyman of high distinction, and the 



other a copy of a photograph taken from the 
" rogue's gallery ;" the greater prominence perhaps 
given to the latter. Events of universal import, for- 
tunate or unhappy, call for the truth, the facts; but 
it is not necessary nor proper to magnify and invent 
horrors to be flashed forth under lurid headlines. 
Such is bait to insnare people, not food to free them. 
Yet too often these are the papers that sway the 
masses, that rule them! Therefore when disgraceful 
and calumnious happenings of stage environments 
receive and command the greater space and atten- 
tion, what real incentive is there to arouse the true 
critic to the stern arduousness and high dignity of 
his office? None but cultured men and women of 
literary taste and distinction, learned in, devoted to, 
and possessed of special discernment in the art of 
criticism, should be called to such an onerous trust. 
Such a state of affairs is of imperative need now. 

We cannot properly progress without an honest 
condition of criticism. It is a power which, when 
justly put and sanely applied (and we recognize no 
other sort) constitutes — a safety-valve to check our 
faults and speed our merits. Fool is he who tampers 
with its proper functions! The critic, if he be one 
of truly deserving credential, establishes a standard 
by which to judge. If you reach such approximate- 
ly, or even approach that approximation, to praise 
you is with him a strange delight. But if you fall 
beneath, or entirely of that standard, it is the critic's 
duty to himself, to you, and most particularly to the 
public to say so. Do not believe that in the mind of 
the genuine critic there lurks behind his power to 



— 7— 

sting, the slightest thought that he might maim. Too 
often the greater pain is his. 

The first performance of a play or player of any 
importance whatsoever, or the initial appearance of 
actor or actress bidding for serious consideration in a 
part of severe proportions (or of any special impor- 
tance in stage affairs) should be attended and re- 
viewed by the dramatic critic of every reputable news- 
paper and periodical in the locality in which such 
initiatory essayal takes place. If these critics be 
honest and generally proficient in the art they profess, 
while they may often differ materially in their dis- 
cernment of the minor details of the play and players, 
nevertheless they must sufficiently agree in the vital 
elements that maintain their highest character, to be 
able to present to the public a judgment upon which 
it may safely determine the desirability or no of an 
indulgence of the exhibit in question. ' The author or 
actor claiming clemency for this initial performance 
readily admits a state of hurriedness and unprepared- 
ness which truly exists most generally in the theatre 
in America today. A condition seriously retarding 
any worthy inclination for art advancement. For the 
critic to humor such bid for leniency would only be to 
increase this lamentable state of shiftless indifference 
to art tendencies, and to inflict upon the public all the 
more the much too prevalent custom of " working a 
play into shape " by imposing upon this public's in- 
dulgence through the imperfection of these first per- 
formances. A discriminate distribution of compli- 
mentary tickets and the ever apparent " first-nighters," 
(the unchronicled wisdom of the play house), fur- 
nishes a desirable balance to the fashioning of a just 



estimate of any initial performance that has under- 
gone honest preparation. Then let the public hear 
its censor. 

The actor is loath to admit adverse criticism; he is 
quick to accept, and think true, any word of flattery. 
This is an universal trait in man, it is true, but in the 
actor the condition is alarming. He spends hours in 
abusing the individual who instigates his displeasure, 
but seldom, if ever, gives a moment's thought to any 
possible accrument that may add to his condition by 
an unfeverish, reflective consideration of the criticism 
offered. Criticism honestly given, even though it be 
not always entirely sagacious, must bear some sort of 
advantage to the recipient if he has the wisdom to 
accept and sift it. There are critics today in Ameri- 
ca whose writings should be a constant source of 
study and profit to the actor. That they seldom are, 
but to the contrary remain unread and unsought, or 
are cast aside with abrupt comments, (compromising 
only to the provoker), or, perhaps, in an assumed at- 
titude of defense, used as a mean advertising medium, 
is a condition truly prevalent in America today. 

It is true that a deplorable abuse of the offices of 
criticism exists in many of the departments devoted 
to the drama in the great daily papers of America 
today. It is genuine cause for just censure in the 
quarter from which it issues, and justifiable reason 
for ready sympathy for the actor. This form of 
criticism descends to the vicious practices that do most 
readily appeal to the ever present clamor for flavorous, 
sensational reading, a condition today, which, in the 
alarming competition for supremacy in circulation, is 
firmly discoloring many formerly cleaner sheets 



_9— 

into a fast and perilous yellow dye. Just reproach is 
here supplanted by ill-mannered ridicule, sometimes 
when not even the former would be justifiable. This 
condition of criticism often makes targets of some of 
the few really worthy personages, (who, by untiring 
energy and serious devotion to the art they honor, 
have placed themselves at the top of their profession), 
targets at which the servile agents of this sorry condi- 
tion may shoot the venomous shafts of their un- 
reasoned opinions and prejudices. Yet, in spite of 
this fact, the vast multitude of actors in America to- 
day eagerly seek, devour and apparently relish, in its 
general survey, this type of journalism, and seldom 
turn to the pages of a newspaper with a general policy 
more rational and less dangerous at least, (in that it 
appeals more to the reasoning, and less to the sensual 
forces), and whose contents is not predominantly a 
matter of alluring headlines, exaggerated detail and 
profane caricatures, and where the subject of dram- 
atic criticism receives at least serious and earnest at- 
tention, and in some instances is yet unfettered by 
commercial shackles and arrogant autocracy. 

It is truly necessary for the protection and edifi- 
cation of the public, and for the cause of true art in 
the drama, that this retrograde condition be checked, 
and that the high charge of criticism be re-instated 
and left free to a just exercise of its proper functions, 
and that its incumbent be understood and proclaimed 
— the rightful censor. And as such the press should 
exalt and defend him, the public hear and heed, the 
manager beckon and respect, and the actor seek and 
study him. Provide these conditions and the critic 
seeks you. He creates himself, and qualifies his 



—10— 

charge. The abuse of criticism often snuffs the 
flame it lit. Begin then to weed this garden of what 
is " rank " and " gross ;" sow anew, possess it with 
beauty, and place it above censorship. The critic 
would be the first to applaud ! 



Number seven of " Stage Affairs " appearing Feb- 
ruary 26, 1907, concerns : — 

THE VAUDEVILLE SYSTEM. 

THE MORALLY ILLEGAL ABUSE OF ITS TRUE MEANT 
SIGNIFICANCE. 



LIB SABY of CONGAS.' 
Two Copies Receiyed * 

FEB 27 199? | zij 

Copyrlffhi Entry 

CLASS A xxc.;no.| 

COPY 3, 



Stage Affairs in America Today* 



—BY- 
ALLEN DAVENPORT. 



VII. 
THE VAUDEVILLE SYSTEM. 

THE MORALLY ILLEGAL ABUSE OF ITS TRUE MEANT 
SIGNIFICANCE. 

The vaudeville stage in America today presents 
much that is genuine, really worthy, and which often 
is of unquestionable superior merit. Were it operated 
normally, freed of the spongy absorption of despotic 
monopoly (and its consequent avaricious practice of 
continuate activity), and so satisfied to remain respon- 
sible for a sane adherence to its true purposes, it 
could adequately, and with distinction, maintain (un- 
doubtedly to a condition of high remunerative satis- 
faction) the not too overcrowded ranks of legitimate 
vaudeville artists. But in its continuate indifference 
to such a desirable stipulation, it too frequently en- 
tertains matter quite irrelevant to the true under- 
standing of the title it impertinently assumes. The 
vaudeville stage of today, and for a number of years 
past, has, both invitingly and beseechingly, become 
the refuge of actors and actresses (of more or less 
prominence) whose popularity in their proper sphere 



— 2— 

of activity has begun to wane, causing consequently in 
the keen discernment of their conjoined business man- 
agers a like proportionate condition of diminished 
commercial importance. These actors and actresses 
then condescend (or otherwise) to enter the field 
of vaudeville. Sometimes they possess qualities of 
real merit; but oftener they are trading on a popu- 
larity and prominence ill-deserved, as regards any 
positive enjoyment of genuine histrionic ability. The 
vaudeville manager, in his speculative sense of box- 
office gains, — and perhaps, moreover, through the 
knowledge of an urgent necessity of filling in the 
extraordinary hours of the prevalent (and abomin- 
able) system of continuous performance, — seizes 
upon such opportunity, and (if a " proper vehicle " 
can be found, and tested as to its possible fitness, 
or unfitness, that is, if there appears to be a gambling 
chance) boldly proclaims such generous condescen- 
sion, magnifying the character of the type that heralds 
it (to the diminished importance of many genuine and 
truly meritorious acts of distinctive vaudeville mark), 
granting in return for such humiliation the compen- 
sation of exorbitant remuneration, of course wholly 
contingent on the mere speculative nature of the 
trade. 

This is not just to the men and women who have 
conscientiously trained for the vaudeville stage; who 
have given hours, days, and years of practice that 
they may perfect terpsichorean, vocal, legerdemain, 
instrumental, acrobatic, mimical, ventriloquous and 
many other forms of skill pertaining to genuine 
vaudeville, not forgetting the patient efforts of those 
who train and prepare the dumb animal for feats of 
almost incredible dimensions. And so, to the unjust 



—3— 

pecuniary embarrassment of such, we are given frag- 
mentary scenes from classic drama, curtailed editions 
of truly meritorious comedies and farces, unskilfully 
reduced to suit the requirements of " time limit," 
mangled both in preparation and exhibition. Then 
we have to endure the original "sketch" (written 
around some emphatic mannerism or peculiarity of 
the actor or actress), often senseless in plot, weak in 
structure, feeble, coarse and boisterous in context and 
delivery. Many of the actors and actresses thus sup- 
planting the vaudeville artists have never known, or, 
if they have, seldom respected or heeded the value 
of necessary preparation for their own condition of 
the theatre, wherein, had they properly appreciated 
such necessity, they might indeed rightfully solicit 
audience in the practice of their profession. 

The vaudeville stage today, in its abnormal system 
of conduction, and demanding as it does a continued 
season of uninterruptedness, and a day of unnatural 
proportions, holds out a tempting allurement to the 
actor and actress drifting through this age of com- 
mercialism. Greater and lesser lights, major and 
minor quantities, who, in common belief, agree that 
the chief value a stage career can hold for them is — 
the all-important condition of immediate pecuniary 
gain; and that stipulation always at the stubborn 
neglect of any studious inclination to treat seriously 
and devotedly the institution of the theatre, and the 
true cause of dramatic art. 

The vaudeville stage in America today is passing 
through that condition of business policy that marks 
the expansive plan of the great department store 
of our large cities. I have said elsewhere that 
I believe in trusts, corporations and large com- 



—4— 

binations when honestly operated. I believe in the 
facilitation and concentration of business in ex- 
pansive countries, and in large and crowded cities. 
But the medium of facilitation and concentration 
must be honest in its solicitation of patronage, 
and never stretch out to the proportions of vicious 
monopoly, which, when at last secure in its condition 
of despotic importance, shall mercilessly force upon its 
purchasers the necessitous acceptance of its wares 
through a determined energy to stifle in other quar- 
ters the condition and spirit of healthy competition, — 
the vitality of all enterprise; the surest incentive to 
high workmanship, superior production, and their con- 
sequent just remuneration. 

We see today in the vaudeville the department store 
of the theatre. Goods of all descriptions in theatrical 
trade are in its lists, with the customary reduction in 
price; but the sign that contains this conglomerate 
admixtion remains still — the vaudeville, a title 
wrongfully claimed by reason of the morally illegal 
abuse of its true meant significance. What direct 
bearing does this existing condition have upon any 
immediate and future hope for high business integ- 
rity and art aim in the theatre in America ? To prop- 
erly answer that question, (and in justice to the 
powers that seek to almost completely control the 
vaudeville system of today), it is necessary to con- 
sider first a condition of so-called high class manage- 
ment which has drawn from the vaudeville ranks much 
of its potency, and by maintaining a certain character 
of person (more or less cunning in a prevalent vulgar 
method of skeleton play construction) is enabled to 
furnish these renegade vaudeville artists with slender 
frames in which to encase their special aptness, sur- 



— 5— 

round them with incongruous matter more or less 
rudely entertaining, and, through despotic offices of 
self-controlment, parade them in the theatres, wherein 
must compete for equal solicitation the truly worthy 
combination of high dramatic importance. 

At least twenty years ago (and for many seasons 
following) there came into sudden notice and in- 
creasing prominence, a writer of what were then 
termed farce comedies. As an instigator of impu- 
dent satire, ready inventiveness and laugh-provoking 
incidents and situations, this author (in the fertility 
and fruitfulness of his numerous, varied and successful 
productions) might be truly proclaimed a genius. 
Into all of these farces were interpolated acts of 
genuine vaudeville quality. These farces occupied 
the stages of the first class theatres throughout the 
United States of America. In the early flush of their 
successes, (and for years after), generous, and often 
excessive, salaries were paid to the engaging people. 
Many men and women long associated with these 
plays found difficulty in adapting themselves to other 
environments when their own popularity (and that of 
the plays also) began to wane. That fact remains so 
in many cases even to the present day. Many young 
women, promising much for future usefulness in 
higher walks of dramatic and operatic endeavor, were 
caught and held by the glamor of quick pecuniary 
gain, persuasion of the managing powers, and by the 
voluntary attentions received from a certain stamp of 
theatre followers, and the consequent showy promi- 
nence attained through being associated with this 
special type of " show " girl. 

The author of these farces, at first quite alone in his 
class, soon had many imitators. For years the stage 



was infested and overrun with this vicious form of 
entertainment, which claimed, and was accorded, a 
place in our best theatres. It spread into the various 
wilder forms of musical comedy, burletta, extrava- 
ganza, etc., invading and usurping the worthy fields 
of genuine burlesque and comic opera. It exists 
today in an alarming condition. These pieces con- 
tain little consistency, continuity or proper proportions. 
They are mere skeletons of inanity, stuffed with 
doughy substance, clothed and decked with vain, 
variegated feathers, with here and there a dash of 
vim by the interpolated special skill of some former 
colleague of the vaudeville. The rest, many of whom 
can neither sing, dance, nor act with even any small 
degree of proficiency, become the mere accessories 
which go to make up a " show," and which must fill 
out the time necessary to exhibit such in the theatres 
entertaining first-class combinations. Still here we 
see much which is more distinctly vaudeville than 
some of the " bills " provided by the present day 
vaudeville houses. 

Thus today in first class combinations, we see, under 
the names of "show," scant vaudeville with prodigious 
setting; and often at the vaudeville we find (under 
some misnomer, unwarrantable presumption, in- 
applicable title) adventurous dramatic inferiority 
protruding from under a cloak of great pretence. 
Even in the cases of some truly worthy dramatic ar- 
tists, we are forced to admit that both their endeavors 
and the material used seem incongruous to the envir- 
onments. In the great swirl of commercialism that has 
overtaken the general trend of theatrical affairs today, 
this ever apparent disregard for the true offices of the 
particular form of entertainment specially advertised 



is signally appalling. In its present significance, di- 
rectly bearing on the theatre today, this one concen- 
trate force — commercialism — dominates the scene, 
ruthlessly tripping up, in its mad rush to attain its 
ends, the higher aims of business integrity, justness 
and art employment. What it foretells for the future, 
if not checked and corrected, is only a simple matter 
of time and speculative certainty. 

In the case of the growing, bulging and leechlike 
propensities of this great department store of the 
theatre, so often indifferent to the means and quality 
of the purchase and exhibition of its wares in many 
of its departments, this spirit of irregular commer- 
cialism is sapping the very life blood and vitality of its 
morally legal possession, where its proper aims should 
rather ever seek to safeguard and promote to its true 
meant significance its very own — the vaudeville. 



Number eight of " Stage Affairs," appearing March 
5, 1907, concerns : — 

THE PREVAILING STOCK SYSTEM. 

ITS PRACTICES A DETRIMENT TO ART AIM. 



FEB 27 1907 



• fiYof CONS- 
Two Copies Received - ; 

MAR g ISO/ 

«~ Sopyriarht Entry 

CUSS A XXc, No, 

/7 O // f, 

COPY B. 



~2> 



Stage Affairs in America Today, 

—BY- 
ALLEN DAVENPORT. 



VIII. 
THE PREVAILING STOCK SYSTEM. 

ITS PRACTICES A DETRIMENT TO ART AIM. 

The stock company wherein the leading actors are 
proficient and experienced in the art they profess, in- 
tellectual, well-mannered, studious, and approximately 
prepared and able to personate with artistic discern- 
ment the vital roles of the drama, — a condition that 
ever must remain the actor's sure foundation, the 
test of his fitness to rightfully claim the privilege to 
practise his art, — and wherein its entering and less 
experienced members, intrusted with comparatively 
smaller parts, are enabled eventually (by a serious 
self-devotion to their art, steady progression through 
fitting preparation and constant study, and also by 
emulation of their higher associates) to attain a just 
proficiency in that art, — such a stock company, 
operating normally on sound methods, capable of 
presenting in an adequate manner for public approval 
and critical comment the higher and standard works 
of dramatic literature, and qualified (by an unre- 



— 2— 

stricted condition of preparation) to promote, and to 
methodically, artistically and effectually produce mod- 
ern, new and untried plays, is, and ever will remain, 
the bulwark and enduring strength of the institution 
of the theatre in any land. 

But the prevailing stock system in America today 
presents no such condition. There may be one or two 
English-speaking companies wherein is apparent, per- 
haps, a spirit and an inclination towards such a proper 
state of affairs, but the general existing condition, 
relating to the great majority of stock companies to- 
day, is a routine of ill-ordered, unfinished mechanism, 
quite removed from the finer principles of art aim, 
and any just appreciation of the necessary co-essential 
balancing forces, — business substantiality and artistic 
worth ; and consequently produces a state detrimental 
to the proper formation, growth, and mould of the 
actor, — criminally exhausting his nervous system, and 
often injurious to his physique (offering no genuine 
reparation for such abuse), and furthermore must, 
by the imperative need of a constant changing and 
insistent regularity in the material put forth (regard- 
less of fitting preparedness and proper finish), estab- 
lish and maintain methods in defiance to the true prin- 
ciples of business integrity. 

The fact that the public patronizes, is loyal to, and 
apparently relishes this condition of underdone dra- 
matic victuals does not condone for this deterioration 
of substantial business stamina, or for the injury done 
to actor and the art of acting, which this abuse of 
what should be the best conditioned state of the 
theatre widely and irreverently produces. The ardor 
manifested, adulation bestowed, and their resultant 
effects brought to bear by the patrons of this phase 



—3— 

of the theatre (honest though they may be), are most 
harmful, in so much as they kindle and wrongfully 
incite in the actor a sense of self-esteem and proper 
efficiency which the hurried and insufficient prepara- 
tory condition (compulsory to the system) totally un- 
warrants, thus spreading a conflagratory stimulant 
that must sooner or later consume the essential it 
serves. Friendly applause, unmindful of bestowment 
whether merited or no, must lose its stimulation to 
the true artist when drunk from such a source. But 
it is seldom lost in the personnel of the prevailing 
stock company of today. Few there are, even of un- 
mistaken talent, and an inherent sense of appropriate 
and ready application of the same, whose ultimate 
worth does not become seriously endangered by the 
viciousness of the prevailing stock system of today. 

This stock actor is called for rehearsal generally 
at ten o'clock, sometimes half-past nine, each morn- 
ing (save one, perhaps, in every week). He is 
obliged to appear at two performances each day, 
twelve in a week (and often fourteen, for many stock 
companies require that today). Scarcely has he com- 
mitted to memory (too often incompletely so) the 
bare words of his part, hopelessly robbed of the small- 
est possibility of an adequate grasp of its complete 
meaning (or the slightest opportunity offered for an 
artistic portrayal), when he has "thrown at him," 
as he would say, another part, the former becoming 
then a thoughtless anxiety, its presentation being left, 
in a large measure, to the prompt routine expertness 
of its portrayer, and the equally ready response of 
his associates. Deprived of all satisfying sense that 
rewards the artist who has labored sufficiently to 
beautifully paint and finish his portrait, what worthy 



motive can hold a man or woman to the practice of 
such a debasement of the exalted art he claims to 
profess ? 

The one predominant cause is here: The actor 
seeks ever the medium nearest at hand that will most 
quickly and readily meet his standard of reasoning, 
which is — that the actor's vocation is chiefly a busi- 
ness; keeping paramount at all times (and predomi- 
nant to any just consideration of art, or the expectancy 
of a condition of fixedness and useful future, through 
progressive preparation) the one ruling common un- 
derstanding, that he is in the business alone for the 
money there is in it. This is not said in disparagement 
of proper thrift, but rather in well considered protest 
against this almost universal argument prevailing 
amongst actors and actresses in America today. We 
should all claim ultimately a just remuneration. If 
you prepare for your art properly and thoroughly, 
and practise it honestly and faithfully, the fitting 
recompense will come. And yet, if the actor and 
actress could with honesty say, " We do not seriously 
solicit heed for any art intention," there might be 
shown some leniency. But no, they wish to be ack- 
nowledged as artists. They crave that distinction in 
the public eye; yet among themselves, in common 
understanding, it is a business first and last, and 
any condition of the theatre that shall most imme- 
diately serve to substantiate that understanding, gains 
their readiest acceptance. There is no phase of the 
theatre in so direct opposition to the proper conditions 
that ensure a healthy growth and progress in art, 
as is this same prevailing stock system under consid- 
eration. And with those who gravitate to its activity, 
it is plainly (except regarding the immediate consid- 



— 5— 

eration of the mere business prospect) an unreasoned 
course. 

Stock actors today continually boast that, in a ma- 
jority of cases, their individual performances (par- 
ticularly in the reproduction of current modern plays) 
equal, and generally surpass, the presentation given 
by the members of the so-called original cast. In rare 
instances this is sometimes true. But such cases are 
indeed few. More often such assumptions are un- 
reasonable and absurd; the outgrowth of unmerited 
self-esteem, unreasoned opinion, and a mistaken belief 
in the importance of their untutored condition. This 
is forcibly true in the event of the presentation of a 
classic play. There is often seen, not only an unwise 
curtailment of the eloquent, poetical beauties of the 
play, a palpable inability on the part of the actors to 
adequately render, with intelligence, elegance and 
effectualness, the sublime grandeur of its context, a 
total inefficiency to the attainment of any approximate 
degree of dignified loftiness in the exposition of the 
"great moments" in the drama (these deficiencies 
are, of course, generally evident also in the one-play 
combination), but there exists, furthermore, a stub- 
born neglect of any serious attempt to faithfully com- 
mit and speak the exact lines of the text. The stock 
actor of today fakes the classics with the same reli- 
gious carelessness that he does the trivialities of the 
modern procreator of dramatic prodigality. And yet 
this same actor (boasting often an undeniable pride 
in the fact of his total ignorance and indifference to 
the classic drama) many times gains approbation and 
applause, and a consequent sense of self-satisfaction 
in an estimate of his own capabilities regarding his 



fit qualifications and proficiency in the classic drama. 
The themes and harmonious beauties of great plays, 
like grand operas, cannot be obliterated nor hopelessly 
defaced, even though entrusted to the efforts of in- 
sufficient (if earnest) mediocrity and brazen charla- 
tanry. Like the loftiness of the eagle's flight, they 
soar sublimely above and beyond the mere horizon, 
whereon, in restless disorder, perch the less ambitioned 
species of their kind. 

There is no phase of the theatre today wherein the 
offices of genuine criticism are left to such neglect 
and relegated to like abuse as in this condition of 
prevailing stock system. This lack of any sufficient 
medium of criticism is much to blame for its woful 
state of continuous unpreparedness. A great many 
of the plays used by these stock companies are of 
comparatively recent construction, and have served a 
little term in the feverish market of theatrical specu- 
lation, and when drained of all essence of any further 
special commercial value to the speculating medium, 
are rented to the stock companies. To such organiza- 
tions, operating on abnormal, incomplete methods, 
these modern plays offer the most desirable medium to 
suit the demands of a hurried preparation. All the 
details of the original production are fully and clearly 
designated ; the positions and " business " of the char- 
acters plainly exposed. A sufficient retention of the 
lines, adroitness in delivering them, and also in sup- 
plying the positions and " business," constitute the 
actual responsibility of the actor in presenting such 
plays. The additional necessary preparations entailed 
in matters of " make-up " and dressing ( accompany- 
ing the indispensable function of committing to mem- 



—7— 

ory the lines of the part) rob the actor of any further 
possibility of applying to his performance a care and 
finish that shall promote to any desired degree an 
adequate exposition of the actor's art. Imperfections 
and defects, unavoidable in the initiate performance, 
must, through the lack of opportunity to eradicate or 
adjust them, magnify as the performances progress. 
In any re-presentation of the play, the actor is gen- 
erally more concerned in the enjoyment of the respite 
afforded by such repetition than in the opportunity 
afforded him to improve his portrayal of the part. 
And finally, the character of these plays and parts 
is not of any permanent importance to the stage, nor 
indicative of any stable medium through which the 
actor may advance his art and condition. The critic 
is not in evidence. His opinion has been passed upon 
the production made originally under conditions en- 
tailing more sufficient care in preparation, and often 
reviewed only after repeated performances. 

Criticism here (concerning the stock company) de- 
scends, more generally, to the smart practices of the 
press agent, or to the uncritical efforts of general 
journalism, often proffered through direct instruction 
from the authorities of the theatre. Under such con- 
ditions favorites are installed, advanced and main- 
tained. Actors and actresses are led into convictions 
of their own ability and importance that a just crit- 
ical estimate could furnish no warrant for. These 
inconsequential though flattering notices too often 
falsely impress and influence the patrons of this con- 
dition of the theatre towards an absurd idolatry of 
the players; a condition which in turn only empha- 
sizes the already questionable quality of these players' 



intrinsic worth histrionically. Many actors and ac- 
tresses insert in the columns of advertising mediums 
these same notices, that agents, by whom they were 
prepared, make free confession were instituted and 
exhibited for business purposes only, indifferent to 
any inferior talent of the actor or actress in question. 
And yet the critic (he who seldom visits or passes 
judgment on the happenings of this condition of the 
theatre) frequently champions, and justly so, the cause 
of the truly meritorious stock system, the one outlined 
at the beginning of this chapter. That an occasional 
observance of the stock system prevalent in America 
today might, and in one particular instance evidently 
did, compel an adverse opinion, is well exemplified in 
the following illustration, and emphasizes the impera- 
tive need of critical review in that quarter. A fore- 
most critic in a large theatrical centre, — one who had 
given considerable space in praise of the really val- 
uable stock company, touching on its special import- 
ance towards the proper developing of actors, — thus 
openly, in contrary terms, expressed an opinion as 
follows concerning the deplorable conditions apparent 
in one of the most largely patronized of these pre- 
vailing stock companies. To my careful observance 
this esteemed critic had not, previous to this occa- 
sion, given any regular comment on the efforts of 
the stock company in question. However, on this 
occasion, under his signature appeared the following: 
" The company evidently sacrificed themselves to 
please their patrons." And further on added, con- 
cerning these same patrons, that they had much to 
learn in the matter of punctuality, and in " breaking 
themselves of the habit of almost incessant talking," 



— 9— 

and in the " acquiring of an instinct which shall teach 
them when to laugh and when not." Surely a stock 
system evolving such an abuse of the art it would 
boast to promote and maintain, and demanding at once 
from its individual incumbents a subserviency to the 
required standard of its patrons, and an indulgence 
of their innocent or purposed rudeness in order to 
retain their patronage, forms a practical demonstra- 
tion and unretractible confession of its undeniable 
detriment to art aim. Add to this extreme condition 
of voluntary surrender of any slight power possessed 
to somewhat maintain a standard of art endeavor, and 
the extreme impossibility, through the abnormal con- 
duction of the system, to ever attain a just criterion 
of sound importance, and who can deny, through such 
practices, its force of constant detriment to art aim; 
and, in the determined, energetic maintenance of this 
unprepared, unfinished state, an enforced lack of 
business integrity? 

And let it be said (and truly to his credit) that this 
same critic recently brought the force of his worthy 
office into special usefulness by a recent reviewal of 
this same stock company, and of yet another one 
toiling in the same centre of activity. Concerning 
the latter he gave a most impartial criticism of that 
company's " courageous " intentions to portray the 
characterizations of a master playwright. In praising 
the ambitious departure from a usual routine, and 
further pleading a support for such from serious play- 
goers (a generous action but somewhat questionable), 
nevertheless, he was forced to say that it was " im- 
possible to admit that the result wholly justified the 
innovation. If the play is to be a success in its acted 



—10— 

form, it can only become such by being interpreted 
by a company of skilful actors, full of resources, and 
competent in the lighter shades of character inter- 
pretation." Such " genuine criticism," justly censur- 
ing the fallacies of the prevailing stock system of 
today in unpreparedly and unconcernedly attempting 
the exposition of the higher drama, is imperatively 
needed very generally. 

And how can this phase of the theatre, in continued 
adherence to such abnormal practices, ever evolve and 
secure a criterion upon which to measure a fixed 
standard of high attainment in the institution of the 
theatre, and the art of the actor? The material gen- 
erally promoted by these stock companies has little 
positive value to ensure any permanence; the con- 
ditions surrounding its exposition are of such un- 
preparedness, high tension, and incompleteness as must 
forbid a proper exhibit of either the matter or the 
medium through which it is revealed. It is merely a 
waste of material and energy to no stable purpose, 
and at the risk of physical and nerve forces. It is 
building with insecure substance through incomplete 
means. No beneficial structure can result and remain. 
And even when sterling material (substantial form, 
sound model) is furnished, there is no sufficient pre- 
paredness to skilfully mould the substance, no ade- 
quate means to finish, to complete the work, nor would 
there be time to properly apply any skill or means 
should it really exist in approximate efficiency. Con- 
sequently must be seen (in the imperative pertinacity 
of both manager and actor to exhibit the model) not 
alone an injury to the model itself, but also a detri- 
ment to the medium employed in the exposition, caus- 



—11— 

ing a constant defectiveness; a condition which, if 
left uncorrected, must of its own reactive force impede 
any possible advance in the true condition of art aim 
in the actor's efforts. 



Number nine of " Stage Affairs," appearing March 
12, 1907, concerns: 

THE STAR SYSTEM. 

ITS MANIFEST CONDITION GENERALLY IRRELEVANT TO 
THE CONSEQUENCE OF ITS TRUE MEANING. 



1I\R 5 1907 



rYofOONGRE! 

Two Copies Received j 

MAR IS 190? Jj£ 

. Copyright Entry I 
CLASS A .<Xc.,No.' 

/7fc /oTb. 



| COPY B. 

Stage Affairs in America Today, 



—BY- 
ALLEN DAVENPORT. 



IX. 
THE STAR SYSTEM. 

ITS MANIFEST CONDITION GENERALLY IRRELEVANT TO 
THE CONSEQUENCE OF ITS TRUE MEANING. 

With the theatre in America today, as with many 
other phases of commercial life, there too often exists 
a policy to thrust to the front inexperience, incom- 
petency and impudence, to the exclusion of tested 
knowledge and real merit (and their attendant modes- 
ties), the former conditions being backed and main- 
tained generally by the power of monopolistic control 
engendering the germs which breed cheapened labor, 
inferior ability, and a consequent condition of demor- 
alization. On the stage today, the existence of this 
condition cannot with truthfulness be denied. 

The name "star" (applicable to individuals in 
various occupations, but perhaps more generally and 
popularly suited to those of the stage) should be con- 
ferred only as a badge of honor for an unmistaken, 
truly merited distinction of superior ability, which 
may manifest itself through individual high mental 
endeavor, or through a sagacious faculty (either by 



— 2— 

marked intelligence or by natural gift) of quick dis- 
cernment to receive, comprehend and readily expose 
the substantial teachings of another, and thereby being 
empowered to predominantly attract, shine and con- 
vince in the exhibition of talent in a general setting of 
some supplied medium. There should always be 
apparent a genuine manifestation of a proven fitness 
to the claim of star distinction. It should never come 
through any anticipate sense, or forced condition, 
brought about by the mere power of opulence, and the 
opportunities its tyrannical persuasion may buy, re- 
gardless of the absence of real merit and propriety; 
nor through the sheer speculation alone of hereditary 
transmission, nor (and most to be censured) through 
the bare channels of sensationalism, base notoriety and 
social scandal. 

The American stage today contains a few person- 
ages rightfully claiming the titular, star. But in the 
cases of far too many who intrusively enter upon its 
threshold (or are thrust thereon), we find no manifes- 
tation of any moral right to the condition of star dis- 
tinction. Therefore we often find, as a consequence, 
many stars of a few years and longer ago, returned to 
the quality of an ordinary player, and occupying posi- 
tions sometimes of no special importance. Their con- 
dition of commercial weight having been tested and 
found wanting, or else sifted of any further profit, 
and they themselves not possessing the essential ele- 
ments to maintain, through any self-merited achieve- 
ments, the true condition of stellar importance, have 
been quickly relegated to their previous standing, and 
their places as stars open again to the speculative mood 
of the manager, who seizes upon any opportune chance 
to humor that mood, and quite generally indifferent 



— 3— 

to any question of the essential fitness of the fortu- 
nate (or unfortunate) one precipitated into the priv- 
ileged position of star prominence. This is a state 
of affairs existing to a marked degree in the ack- 
nowledged first-class managements of today. 

It is not unusual, and it is perfectly right, that the 
matter of years and experience should play no special 
part in the peculiar fitness of a person to become a 
star. Acting is more a question of preparation, study 
and finish in the pursuit of an art aim. Experience 
is, of course, when practised constantly in the right 
direction, invaluable to the consummation of that art. 
But wanting in a proper preparation, and lacking an 
inclination to study, and foregoing a struggle for the 
attainment of that finish, experience is often a disin- 
terested teacher, and in the stubbornness of its pupil 
to couple any condition of self- helpful energy to the 
advantages of its teachings, frequently leaves him to 
the mercy of such neglect, an inattention which, by 
the steady augmentation of his heedlessness, can but 
add to his faults as time goes on. 

A person early installed as a star should not expect 
to progress to a proper degree of stability and per- 
manence without the discipline of constant study, un- 
ceasing practice, and concentrated energy, any more 
than might an ordinary player without such qualifi- 
cations expect to eventually attain that distinction. 
Yet how seldom does the vaporous star of today con- 
sider the necessity of such discipline. A suitable 
vehicle must be found in which to parade some special 
accomplishment, and best obscure the limitations of 
this star. Few there are in whom rest the essential 
qualities to adequately display the serious designs of 
the higher drama, and fewer still who can at all effect 
the exacting conditions of the classics. 



The virtuoso who must select composition suited 
only to the limited consequence of his accomplishments 
is not truly a virtuoso. If he cannot always excel 
in a varied range of classical composition, he must 
nevertheless attain an art finish sufficient to tech- 
nically and intelligently display the dignified intention 
of the composer, or otherwise he cannot hold the 
coveted distinction, nor will he be allowed to exercise 
the superior tests of virtuosity; neither shall he com- 
mand audience and respect. 

The star, the virtuoso performer of the stage, rec- 
ognizes no necessity of such a condition of art finish, 
nor does the manager who parades him, nor the 
audience that patronizes him. The star today stands 
(for the most part) a favored individual through some 
condition totally irrelevant to the consequence of the 
true meaning of his appellative significance. To deny 
to the instrumentalist, the medium interpreting the 
predominant theme of the composer, the possession 
of the title virtuoso through his inability to attain 
a proper art standard, and to indiscriminately accord 
the charlatan instrumentalist, the actor (interpreting 
the predominant theme of the playwright), the title 
star only exalts the more the genuineness of the 
former, and the louder pronounces the vainglorious 
emptiness of the latter. This condition extending 
generally throughout the entire vocation of acting, 
and so placing upon its encumbents no compulsory 
stipulation of preparation, progress and ultimate pro- 
ficiency to warrant their fitness to practise such an 
art, but leaving all access to its abode unguarded and 
free to every means and ends of irregularity, con- 
stantly obstructs the most desired growth, and must, 
through a continued existence, and no attempt to 



adjust or remove such obstruction, remain a steady 
menace to the highest state of productiveness of the 
drama in America. 

It is not strange, therefore, in this almost total dis- 
regard for the establishment of a tested and visible 
fitness that may rightfully permit the aspirant to 
engage in a career of histrionic service, that so many 
of the so-called stars of today, when failing in the 
expectancy and exhibition of the medium provided 
them, and not possessing the essential qualities to sus- 
tain the higher exactions of genuine stellar signifi- 
cance, must either retire to the ranks of the ordinary 
player, or revert to some former " success," in hopes 
of sponging up its well-worn fabrics into temporary 
use, until they shall again be fitted to a new form 
best emphasizing some special peculiarity, and so ob- 
scuring the many defects arising from such funda- 
mental deformity. But while there exists a tendency 
on the part of the manager to generally ignore the 
practices of higher integrity, and an inclination on the 
part of the actor to deny and neglect the essential 
forces of fundamental import necessary to the prepara- 
tion, progress and finish of any art, just so long will 
the American stage continue to be no more than a 
commercial mart where humanity and inanimate sub- 
stance challenges alike the speculative fancy of the 
manager, and who so holds them of equal importance 
in the preparation of, his " prop " list. 

There is a class of star (and theatrical company) 
invading a territory generally unfrequented by the 
more pretentious companies (although often visited 
by a most praiseworthy class of star of whom we shall 
speak later), which, in its unwarranted confidence 
or wilful viciousness, often brazenly heralds a promise 



of extraordinary display that neither the material pre- 
sented nor the talent employed can in any way fulfil. 
They often work their way on the vulgar plan of 
mere trickery; that is, any means of getting into a 
town ; calloused to any thought or care of the treach- 
ery practised upon the public, content only in the 
knowledge that they are leaving the same day. Some 
districts of the United States are cursed with this 
transitory condition of theatrical garbage, scattering 
in its trail the sordid seeds of mistrust, misbelief and 
misunderstandment, that too often choke the more 
wholesome products of its kind; and which, further- 
more, freely placards the highest acceptance of the 
best condition of plays and players with the same 
insignia as its own, in one common vernacular, — 
" troupes " and " troupers." In the adjustment of 
this condition is needed a strict adherence to the prin- 
ciples of business integrity among the managers of 
the theatres and halls in the towns through which 
such companies squirm. Although sometimes de- 
ceived, nevertheless these managers often solicit and 
find profit in such material. They sacrifice much in- 
tegrity to gain a little reimbursement of the cash 
drawer. Perhaps there is a compensative propriety 
in their conduct. 

Even in many of these small cities and towns, the 
manager is bound securely by the dictates of a selfish 
power. He cannot have whom he will, and dare not 
refuse whom he would. To fill the exigencies of the 
booking department of this great power, these various 
managers are often required to crowd within the 
space of one week as many attractions as there are 
days in that week. Perhaps not one of these attrac- 
tions is of sufficient worth or standing to place any 



— 7— 

desired gain into the hands of the local manager, 
particularly in view of this despotic enforcement of 
entertainment in a town incapable of decently sup- 
porting more than one or two attractions in a week; 
and, moreover, through the fee demanded for the 
booking of such undesirable encumbrances. Perhaps 
the following week or two are left to absolute neglect 
by the machinery of this vast booking agency. A 
desire to fill in this vacuum often leads these man- 
agers to the speculative medium of their trade. 

They complain of the material forced upon them, 
and of the indifference shown to their importance as 
managers in not being favored with the best quality 
under the dictatory distribution of this large con- 
trolment. In the abnormality of such conditions it 
is not strange that they should resort to an indis- 
criminate practice in the rental and percentage plans 
of the theatre. In this speculation they often find 
more profit, and occasionally present material and 
talent superior to that forced upon them by dictatorial 
supremacy of the power that forces their signal re- 
leasement of independence. For much that they must 
accept through that means is of a most inferior pat- 
tern, finding excuse for its existence through the 
various channels of opulence, cringing partisanship, 
peculiar favoritism, and often, on the part of the first 
party, through a malicious desire to offset, and some- 
times even ruin, the prospects of some displeasing 
competitor. In this condition of managerial practice, 
the class of star just alluded to finds a greedy boon 
for the exercise of his (or her) obnoxious vanity 
and bloated incompetency. 

There is another quite opposite (but most com- 
mendable) phase of the star system; in its activity 



—8— 

also removed somewhat from the more coveted sphere 
of first-class distinction, but still, in its self- evincive- 
ness, often of far more genuine importance (regard- 
ing also the substance of the plays presented) than 
the manifest condition of the " high priced " star 
of today, so generally irrelevant to his true meant 
significance. It is indeed delightful to note and praise 
the independence of some few actors and actresses 
(genuine stars), who endure many inconveniences in 
travel and disadvantages in theatres that they may 
still maintain an individual dignity and distinction 
which their properly matured art and experience hon- 
estly admits of. 

Before the ingress of theatrical monopoly, and at 
its inception, many of these stage lights were then 
firmly established and deserving stars ; playing in 
theatres of highest class, and enjoying throughout the 
country in cities of largest importance the patronage 
and wise discernment of both public and press. But 
there they were stayed in their ripening maturity, and 
thus neglected by the stipulation of irregular commer- 
cialism (a state of disorder which, by reason of a forced 
hurriedness ever necessary to meet the extravagant 
demands of its abnormal growth, must of consequence 
supplant the condition of quality by the substitution 
of quantity), these qualified artists were obliged to 
step aside and gradually deviate to the less desirable 
avenues that did not then hold the pecuniary profit 
and value sufficient to specially warrant a speculatory 
condition of immediate combinement with the main 
thoroughfares, already fast being seized and held by 
the ambitious, hastening strides of commercialism; 
thoroughfares which, if these players would hope to 
re-step, they must once and for all sacrifice to the 



— 9— 

theatrical " highway commission " every true sense of 
merited independence and unrestrained artistic en- 
joyment. 

And so today we find really worthy stars (who have 
been ousted from their proper sphere, or deprived 
therein of their rightful province, through an unjust 
classification of the apportionment of theatres under 
the control of this " highway commission ") afford- 
ing, to personal disadvantages, great benefit in small 
centres, through the presentation of truly commenda- 
ble plays and the exhibition of superior art. Perhaps 
there is some compensation in that fact; and which 
may to some degree offset that long prevalent and 
stubborn process of histrionic incendiarism, produc- 
ing only ashed insurance settlements, miserly scattered 
to kindle another transitory " meteor," soon to become 
in turn a wanton waste of theatrical combustion, whose 
darkened ashes shall illumine all the more the gen- 
uineness of the truly lustrous star. 



Number ten of " Stage Affairs," appearing March 
19, 1907, concerns: 

THE REPERTOIRE SYSTEM. 

MANY COMPENSATIONS FOR ITS MARKED DECADENCE. 



Stage Affairs in America Today* 



— BY— 



RARY of CONGRESS ) 

ALLEN DAVENPORT. 

Copyright Entry H \ 

KS /\ XXc.No.! ~ 



COPY B. 



X. 

THE REPERTOIRE SYSTEM. 

MANY COMPENSATIONS FOR ITS MARKED DECADENCE. 

There are a few " high-class repertoire " companies 
in America today existing in the best condition that 
that term implies. Too much commendation, encour- 
agement and support can not be given this class of 
attraction which carefully and adequately prepares and 
exhibits an interesting and varied line of worthy plays. 
But the stars and managements who attempt this today 
are few indeed. Two reasons principally may be ad- 
vanced for this apparent decadence in the high-class 
repertoire system. 

First, the enormous expense required to properly 
produce each individual play to meet the ready ex- 
pectancy of the " public," who (to use the argument 
employed generally by the present-day managers) 
looks first of all for a " show " ; albeit, to that public's 
unsophistication, this " show " is often an intentioned 
chromo-type deceit. Notwithstanding, to equip and 



—2— 

transport a first-class company playing in an extended 
repertoire is today a matter of great expense. To all 
managers so doing and meeting the modern expecta- 
tion of a good production, much credit and deserving 
support is due. 

The other reason for a seeming decadency in first- 
class repertoire is this: there are few actors and 
actresses in America today, as compared to a period 
fifteen or more years ago, who can, with sufficient 
art and practice, evenly sustain throughout a reper- 
toire of varied and exacting parts an interest and 
attention that shall equally offset the scenic, electrical, 
and otherwise lavish embellishments of the prevalent 
one-play combination system of to-day. However, 
lamentable as the last mentioned condition may appear 
to many, and further conceding that oftentimes the 
spectacular element of the play today is in tinseled 
excess of the actual rational demands, nevertheless I 
believe this condition of elaborate preparation for 
display and lavishness in production to be of vast 
and permanent importance, stimulating an emulative 
condition of present worth and future value to the 
American stage, and consequently serves, to a very 
considerable extent, a substantial compensation for 
the regrettable departure of the earlier repertoire sys- 
tem, with its many lustrous and versatile stars, back- 
grounded by dingy stock scenery, and surrounded by 
incongruously and illy-robed supernumeraries and im- 
possible accessories. 

In a broad outline of art aim in the theatre all 
auxiliary assistance and ornamentation should receive 
sufficient attention in the general preparation and pro- 
duction of a play ; but at very most they should never 



—3— 

become more than adjunctives. The condition of a play- 
stands first; and then the consideration of its por- 
trayal. The vanities that adorn these essentials should 
be appropriately fitted to such forms only when those 
forms are fittingly appropriate to wear them. Art ex- 
pression is the approximate perfection finally mani- 
fested in some originally conceived superior type or 
beautiful idea. If such conception and manifestation 
of the playwright (and exposition of the player) are 
not superior and beautiful in themselves, no adjunc- 
tive embellishment can truly make them so, any more 
than can a gilded frame make amends for an inferior 
canvas. A beautiful canvas may be less attractive to 
the uncultivated eye, perhaps, if it lacks an appropriate 
frame ; but no encasement of a genuine canvas ever 
approaches the value of the canvas. The art merchant 
might delude even genuine patronage by the sub- 
stitution of clever counterfeit neatly framed. But he 
never does (or, indeed, very rarely will it be found 
so). He is honest. The theatre manager understands 
no such discernment in the true offices of the art store 
he is conducting. He is either wilfully or ignorantly 
dishonest in the management of his affairs. His com- 
mercialism, concentrated towards monopolistic control, 
abuses its true spirit and high offices, and makes art 
at all times subordinate to its avaricious demands. 
Today his stage is a tinseled frame, wherein he struts 
his plumed chromotypes. That he often receives 
genuine patronage does not mitigate the dishonesty 
of such purposed delusion. 

Fifteen to twenty years ago there were many young 
actors and actresses beginning their careers in com- 
panies of distinction in " high-class repertoire," sur- 



rounded by environments of revered traditions and 
artistic helpfulness that promised much for them, and, 
consequently, the future benefit they might lend to 
the American stage. The advantages then offered 
these young aspirants for a healthy growth, sane 
progress and ultimate efficiency in their chosen voca- 
tion were many, and, if wisely accepted, genuinely 
beneficial. Many had gained a still stronger advan- 
tage by early association with the truly worthy stock 
companies, then lingering firmly and maturely on their 
last footing, but soon to be weakened and finally 
knocked under by the incoming tread of commer- 
cialism. To sit at the feet of the great personages 
dominating the stage at that period, and to consciously 
(or by absorption), through emulation or otherwise, 
gain a simple knowledge of the great art of which 
these personages were the very vitality, was of no 
small consequence of itself alone; but add to that 
the profitable discipline of practical instruction, advice 
and constant association with such superior minds, 
and one can form some idea of what a pliable, willing 
and serious mould (aided later by matured individual 
mentality) might finally develop into. And at that 
time there were truly not a few at the beginning of 
careers that should have progressed to a height of 
distinguished attainment. But this was not to be. 

And these players, whose best purposes have been 
so impeded, dwarfed, and finally immerged under the 
insurmountable wave of abnormal existence, who have 
become helpless through the inevitable process that 
turns them into the condition of quantity, to be in- 
creased or diminished in measure according to their 
immediate importance of commercial weight (and 



who are lost to any further pecuniary advantage as 
speculative mediums for despotic injunction), must 
be the first to keenest sense (their chains of help- 
less subserviency broken, and themselves neglected 
and useless) the utter depravity of purpose, corrup- 
tion of honesty, and depredation of art in such a 
process of histrionic kidnapping, and to which (in 
a sacrifice of ideals and the true spirit of emulation) 
they had so carelessly surrendered, but to walk the 
path of mushroom vanity, soon to find it only a slavish, 
ceaseless treadmill, dependent on a fixed machinery 
demanding mercenary profit only; its treadwork 
motionless, the hireling finds himself still where he 
had started. 

The list of such histrionic aspirants was no mean 
one, and at the present time may be often readily re- 
called by noting the worthy, if late, efforts of some 
of its individuals to materialize the expectancy of their 
early hopes, or to continue the former condition of 
their interruptedness. No better proof can be offered 
of the decadency of the " first-class repertoire system," 
and a consequent detriment to art progress and dom- 
inant force in the present-day actor ( incapacitating him 
from special usefulness in the stern and versatile 
exactions of a varied range of meritorious plays), than 
the generally popular and critical belief, after view- 
ing these more recent efforts, of the inadequacy of 
the general support offered the star or stars attempt- 
ing a re-establishment of their early repressed careers. 

Notwithstanding, the era marking the beginning of 
a sudden extravagant attention to the matter of scenic 
and other auxiliary effects, even though often ex- 
ceeding in importance that of the play and portrayal 



(and sometimes abused through the mean offices and 
purposed counterfeit), can not be overlooked in a 
just estimate of its benefit to a then stubbornly neg- 
lected condition of advancement in that direction. It 
gave an impetus much needed, and, when honestly- 
promulgated, worked indeed a revelation in the mat- 
ters of care and attention to details, conditions that 
had truly become, through sullen neglect by many 
worthy stars, matters of shocking consequence. I 
believe that, as an import of ultimate grand good 
to the stage, this condition of superior production, 
when genuine, serves as no mean recompense for the 
marked decadency of the first-class repertoire system. 
There exists, we know, in a popular form, catering 
to audiences in cities and towns not generally the- 
atrical centres, a condition of commendable repertoire. 
We cannot deny that it fills an important part in 
districts not frequented by many of the better class 
attractions, and where the people cannot afford the 
luxury of the latter's scale of high prices. Many of 
these repertoire companies are of no small merit, and 
have occasionally graduated exceptionally proficient 
actors into positions of special note; but, notwith- 
standing, as most of them exist today, soliciting ap- 
proval through most extraordinary methods, playing 
two performances a day at ridiculously low prices, and, 
moreover, endeavoring to meet the standard of the 
patronage received, we cannot with truthfulness say 
that they add any special distinction to the theatre, 
nor do they afford the proper medium through which 
an actor might hope to gain material and artistic 
advancement. 



—7— 

And, furthermore, they sometimes place to dis- 
advantage first-class attractions by monopolizing the 
solicitation of the people's patronage previous to the 
advent of such a company. But such is not always the 
case. At other times these repertoire companies serve 
a good purpose by crowding out many of the in- 
numerable, inferior combinations with incomplete pro- 
ductions, pretentious stars of feeble calibre, who hap- 
hazardly are continually dumping in and out of the 
smaller cities and towns of the country. These 
repertoire companies are far preferable to such, and 
in lieu of the small admission fee exacted, and the 
honest acquaintance they make to the people of their 
wares, cannot be said to forfeit any business integrity, 
nor falsely hold out any pledge of artistic superiority. 
Kept within the limitations of their self-exposed condi- 
tion, they supply a benefit that cannot be gainsaid. But 
if transferred to the test of critical approval in a 
theatrical centre of any importance, they naturally 
must fail to justly realize, to a satisfactory degree, the 
exactions and expectancy of such a test, both through 
inadequacy of production, and individual artistic por- 
trayal. They serve no recompense to offset, in any 
way, the condition of superior production that pre- 
vails in the truly meritorious one play combination 
system of today. 

To bring about a rational adjustment of the com- 
mercial and artistic ends of the theatre it needs now 
the devoted individual strife of playwright and actor 
towards the established understandment of, and adhe- 
rence to, a stipulated qualification for the practice of 
their arts, and a sense of stern business integrity, and 
constant acceptance, on the part of the manager, of 



this stipulated qualification in playwright and actor, all 
working for a common exaltedness of the American 
stage. This could be well begun through the medium 
of the one play combination system of today if its 
advantages were honestly and wisely pursued. 



Number eleven of "Stage Affairs," appearing 
March 26, 1907, concerns: 

THE ONE PLAY COMBINATION 
SYSTEM. 

ITS ADVANTAGES FOR ART ACCOMPLISHMENT, IF WISELY 
PURSUED. 



1907 \ 

A XXc, Nor) 



& m 



A XXc, Nor 

Stage Affairs in America Today* 



—BY- 
ALLEN DAVENPORT. 



XI. 

THE ONE PLAY COMBINATION 

SYSTEM. 

ITS ADVANTAGES FOR ART ACCOMPLISHMENT, IF WISELY 
PURSUED. 

I will not claim that, within the limited scope of 
its direct employment and results, the combination 
system of today is all that one might wish for to 
best accomplish a high exposition of the actor's art 
(far from it); but, considered with the prevailing 
stock system and decadent repertoire system, regard- 
ing the advantages offered for proper study, prepara- 
tion and finish (and most particularly in respect to 
the opportunities and time afforded to pursue, in con- 
junction with his compulsory duties, the general ends 
and accomplishments of the actors' vocation), the 
combination system is, in my opinion, if wisely pur- 
sued, inestimably, and beyond any argumentative rea- 
soning, of great benefit to, and opening possibilities of, 
positive and lasting good results for, the actor who 
would strive to best serve the profession of the 
theatre. 

Granting the possession of talent, a serious pur- 
pose, and a ready inclination to work, seeming im- 



—2— 

possibilities may be accomplished by the proper appli- 
cation of a constant, concentrated, progressive use of 
these forces. Actors and actresses, especially the 
great "multitude" (of course there are some excep- 
tions), apply their energy and talent solely to the 
immediate exhibition of their skill. The fact that any 
significant part properly studied (even with no view 
to playing, it) must enhance to some degree the 
momentary condition of employed activity, seldom 
if ever demands from them a thought or care. The 
immediate remuneration is quite all the concern they 
know. Sight-seeing, sociableness, cards and permea- 
ble literature consume a good proportion of their 
leisure hours. There would be no special cause for 
censure were they disposed to turn some time and 
attention to a serious consideration and pursuit of the 
study of the art they still would fain profess. But 
that is a condition seldom to be found in the cast of 
a travelling combination. And yet these majority 
leisure hours, if properly employed, can be made the 
preparatory stages and firm stepping-stones to great 
possibilities of future permanence in art development, 
and its consequent just remuneration. 

The stock actor of today, transferring his base of 
operation to the combination system, argues thus: 
" I simply had to; two a day (meaning performances) 

for the last years, why — it's fierce! just live 

in the theatre, that's all. I had to get out on the 
road." Before the season is over the chances are 
that this same actor (meditating on the condition of 
decreased remuneration and increased expenditure, 
obscured, perhaps, in an uncongenial part, wearied 
of long jumps and night stands, maybe) will be 



—3— 

heard to say : " Never again for me ; back to stock 
and my two a day. It's not so bad in the big cities, 
but when you're up against these "burgs" (isolated 
cities and towns), why — it's fierce! on the train, in 
the hotel, or at the theatre — a dog's life." To this 
type of actor (and he predominates today) it is in- 
deed a " beastly existence," and the theatre business 
truly a " fierce proposition." And so he vacillates 
between the two conditions, and cannot, even through 
an evident preference for the former, add (because 
of its abnormal practices) any merited distinction 
to either its offices, or to his own importance ; and in 
his restless invasion and withdrawal from the latter 
had not attempted, and cared not, to wisely employ 
his idle moments. 

The instrumentalist deems it expedient and highly 
necessary at all times to maintain a continual practice 
of the medium essential to the highest manifestation 
of his art. Especially is this true in a wise con- 
templation and use of his idle moments. It is a 
drudgery necessary to all ambitions if success is to 
be reached. But the vast multitude of actors (with 
few exceptions) observe a contrary rule; they as 
consistently disregard (or misunderstand) the value 
of these idle moments, and unpardonably so when 
unemployed and fretting for something to turn up. 
There is no excuse for this. While engaged in the 
actual routine of the travelling combination, there 
might be shown at times, perhaps, some leniency 
in this lapse of duty (through occasional hardships 
in travel and incommodious living), nevertheless it is 
an indisputable fact that, even so, the idle moments 
are many and continuous in which, were he so dis- 



posed, the actor might strive continually for an 
ultimate high state of proficiency in his art, instead 
of resting content, as he mostly does, on a seeming 
determined indifference to any such exalted aims. 

Today the vocation of the actor is too seldom 
taken seriously by its own kind. The theatre too 
often becomes, not a " work " house, but rather a 
" play " house for the delectation of the actors' amuse- 
ment, often to the disadvantage of the rightful claim- 
ant to his divertive faculty. During the preparation 
of a play, and at rehearsals, a compulsory self-in- 
terest, if nothing more, naturally effects a needful 
seriousness to a desirable general benefit. But I refer 
to his disposition after these preparatory stages are 
over, as a member of a travelling combination, while 
in the theatre and during the progress of the play. 
In justice to the actor let us state that he is often 
obliged to suffer many discomforts, hindrances, and 
annoyances in some of the theatres wherein he must 
play (often theatres of foremost importance) as re- 
gards stages, dressing-rooms, and sanitary conditions. 
In many theatres in America today the above con- 
ditions are of the most unsuitable, incommodious and 
foul proportions. The employer who had subjected 
his workmen to offices of such offensiveness would 
receive their just indignation and severest censure for 
such inhumanity. It is true that there is a low type 
of actor who is not particularly careful at all times 
of the managers' property, and wilfully abuses well- 
ordered conveniences. Such degradation points to 
a need of stern reformation effecting a more careful 
discrimination in the now too ill- reasoned condition 
of engaging men and women for such a truly respect- 



— 5— 

able and highly intellectual vocation. But neither the 
manager's negligence nor the actor's depravity can 
excuse either in a heedless deviation from a just 
conception of their rightful obligations each to the 
other. 

I have said that the vocation of the actor is too 
seldom seriously pursued. There is a reason for this 
not wholly to the ignominy of the actor. The business 
manager of today (the dominant type) is, for the 
most part, a person void of any beautiful idea of the 
institution he conducts. He will not even recognize it 
as a legitimate business. He does not, perhaps, pro- 
claim this fact on the street corners, to his audiences, 
or even to his acquaintances; but, nevertheless, 
through constant instances in daily contact with his 
subsidiary servants, he voluntarily declares his trade 
an illegitimate one. " You can't do things the same 
as you can in a legitimate business — the show busi- 
ness is different." That is this particular manager's 
unshaken estimate of the institution he conducts. It 
is different only in that he makes it so. A few of 
the type of reputable managers still remain. Many 
have been literally forced, by this present-day method 
of procedure, out of the enjoyment of any further 
profit to the public or to themselves. Some have 
deteriorated to menial positions under the irregular 
practices of the dominant type that is now seeing the 
decadent heights of its gluttonous excesses. Void of 
any healthy views concerning the business balance of 
the theatre (which is their special charge, and which 
they importantly conduct as such), how could they 
be expected to understand and maintain in any dif- 
ferent view the exhibits, material (and exposition of 



same) necessary to the promotion of such trade? The 
man who is going to do a dishonest business won't 
bother to stock his store with honest goods. And if 
he finds honest goods already there, they become in 
his hands of like consequence to the purposed uses 
of the rest. 

Today the actor who is devotedly honest and serious 
in his art finds no relative just reward in the common 
estimation of the manager. He becomes of similar 
importance with the illiterate, charlatanical trifler ; one 
who often finds the readier favor with managerial 
irregularity, which latter condition must sometimes 
surrender to the former's retaliatory bombast, being 
equally armed with the same common weapons of 
ignorance, dishonesty and nervy push, and wielding 
them often with superior emphasis. Consequently the 
actor laboring for his art finds small encouragement 
and little sympathy. If he would remain he must 
truly (as I have said before) sacrifice intellectuality, 
temperament, and even manhood to hold his position. 
Even more! It is not in his nature always to re- 
taliate. It is beneath him so to do. The manager 
often understands such only to be a lack of moral 
courage, and adds advantage to his side. It is true 
that really worthy players forfeit their ideals and 
emulative tendencies, and find it " wisdom," or seem- 
ingly do, to fawn and cringe to not endanger the 
prolongation of their contracted agreement. 

A cultured, polished gentleman and capable actor 
of thoroughly artistic tastes once said to me, when 
I had assumed a pertinent attitude of defence against 
one of the most consummate fakirs the office of stage 
management has ever seen (this was in a company 



— 7— 

of the highest repute): "Very ill-advised; I have 
learned that I must go over in the corner and put 
my head in a bucket of water, if they direct me to." 
The next season this gentleman was retained in the 
company, but with scarcely a speaking part. Two 
seasons later he was away from it altogether. Totally 
submerged by its water bucket environments. Several 
seasons have intervened, and he has never re-plunged 
this much coveted reservoir of bucket propensities. 
This same company contained many such similar cases. 
There are many such cases of similar companies. 

But to continue our argument concerning the ad- 
vantages which the combination system affords the 
studiously inclined actor. Combinations of first-class 
standing seldom play more than eight performances 
in a week. Four hours (at the very outside, four 
hours and a half) is the time occupied by the actor 
in discharging the actual duties of his office. It is 
often less than four hours. An average of six work- 
ing hours a day for six days in a week would cover 
a full estimate of the actor's compulsory obligation 
in the routine of a well - regulated combination. 
One can readily see the vast opportunity open to 
the actor for a continual effort to improve his con- 
dition and his art, even if he devoted no more than 
an hour or two each day to the task. 

Of course the actor is often obliged to spend extra 
time at the theatre rehearsing. These rehearsals, 
although sometimes justly exacted and through real 
necessity, are, nevertheless, many times merely the 
presumptuous summons of supererogatory stage man- 
agers; although perhaps dictating at the even more 
arrogant command of some " featured " individual, 



who, thoroughly inefficient, and under continual pet- 
ulancy at the lack of outside adulatory notice, com- 
mensurate with steadily focussed self-regardfulness, 
and dimmed by a company receiving public and crit- 
ical preference, seeks an outlet for this ill-temper 
(thereby adding a self-inflicted aggravation) by fret- 
fully enduring, in common with those unjustly taxed, 
the like penalty of a useless rehearsal. Or the 
summons may come from the discontented manager, 
who, hardened to (or ignorant of) any true appre- 
ciation of the actors' importance, views the situation 
only from the unsatisfactory box-office returns. And 
sometimes, and by no means infrequently, these un- 
just demands issue from the contemptible supposition 
that rehearsals are really necessary in order to keep 
in check any disposition on the part of the actor to 
assume a condition of undue self-esteem that might 
perhaps lead to something more alarming. Then there 
is the dreaded summons by the author-manager. 
Unless he be a person of dignified prominence, truly 
gifted, conscious of man's fallability, in short, a really 
superior playwright, there will be no adverse crit- 
icism of his composition that cannot be readily laid 
to the incompetency of the individual efforts of his 
company. The foamy pomposity and exposed vacuity 
of such persons is indeed pitiable in their endeavors 
to seek out of chaff nutritious material. Here the 
rehearsal becomes a thing of imposture and criminal 
exhaustion. 

A properly constructed play that has been ade- 
quately and thoroughly rehearsed by a skilled hand 
becomes, like a piece of machinery or a clock, well- 
ordered mechanism. It needs adjusting and regu- 



—9— 

lating from time to time, it is true, but constant tinker- 
ing by the unskilled hand, as with machinery and a 
clock, can only clog and impede its proper functions. I 
have known such a play to progress throughout a sea- 
son without a rehearsal (except the few occasioned by 
an unavoidable change in the cast), and steadily 
to the betterment every way of the play and actor. 
To harass, harangue and fatigue by constant tinkering, 
the necessary agents that keep in motion the play- 
wright's model, only uselessly wastes the tissues of 
those agents, and materially impairs the model itself. 
I am not speaking of the play in the hands of the 
skilled, experienced and just regulator. Notwith- 
standing, even with the addition of important (or 
unimportant) rehearsals, the certain necessity of travel 
and its resultant condition of fatigue, the actor play- 
ing in the combination still has many idle moments 
full of golden opportunity to materially advance him 
in his art. That he does not generally accept such 
is a matter of no small consequence in estimating the 
continual decadency of histrionic art and the high 
designs of the theatre. 

I have mentioned (in justice to the actor) some 
of the annoyances and indignities he is often sub- 
jected to while a member of a travelling combination. 
Granting that today in some companies there does 
not exist a condition of such unnecessary friction 
(but they are few), even so, wherein does the actor 
specially merit from the manager — through any in- 
dividual marked effort on his part to benefit his own 
condition, and so to more fittingly serve that man- 
ager who places in the actor's hands a partial power 
at least to make or mar the material of his invest- 



—10— 

ment — a deeper respect, higher dignity, and greater 
consideration than that degree of questionable con- 
sequence which is now alloted him? If the manager 
in a general estimate thinks that "all actors are alike," 
and looks upon them as vacillating, capricious, un- 
reliable persons, and engages them only to supply 
the immediate commercial necessity, — property read- 
ily obtained, and as easily dispensed with, — it is 
also true that the actor today, commonly estimating 
the manager, views him with no less doubting mind, 
believing with equal firmness that " all managers are 
alike," and that they, too, are merely commercial 
necessities, but quite reversely — troublesome to ob- 
tain, and hard to be dispensed with. 

It is the positive existence of this dual condition 
today (a tendency of both manager and actor to 
doubt the other's sincereness, and to view with skep- 
ticism the actions and motives of the other) that 
deprives the institution of the theatre of an essential 
co-harmonious effort quite necessary for the highest 
approximate attainment of idealism, without the pos- 
session of which no mission can ever be at most 
properly fulfilled. That spirit of endeavor that moves 
and urges one on to a constant strife for the attain- 
ment of the highest condition possible in any chosen 
worthy walk of life. 

In America today this cannot be truthfully said of 
the vast multitude of actors that are daily squeezing 
and being pushed in and out of the ranks of the 
countless non-purposed companies that almost hourly 
are being precipitated into an already much over- 
crowded field of activity. It is this enormous over- 
balancing majority condition which holds no settled 



—11— 

understanding of the best intentions of the theatre, 
nor seeks to find one, that mostly goes to make up 
the grand totality of the actor's profession. Each 
individual, in his heedlessness of any attainment of 
high things in his vocation, strikes as great a blow 
for its impoverishment as, in a proper carefulness, 
he might strike for its enrichment. The advantages 
for such are innumerable to the actor engaged in the 
travelling combination. 

The hours afforded for study, mental improvement, 
constant progression towards artistic finish in the 
art of the actor are constantly at hand. If it does 
not lie within the self-reliant possibilities of his in- 
dividual understanding, there are other means at hand 
to establish some settled form, some fundament, some 
sort of system of procedure through which to de- 
velop the art he deigns to practise. There certainly 
are treatises of enough conviction on which to base 
a plan of study. There are truly worthy professors 
of oratory, dramatic expression, and their adjunctive 
essentials. They are at least available during the 
vacation days. One may return again to them. The 
instrumentalist seldom stops at one master. He seeks 
many. In the hour of his greatest achievement he 
is still a student. 

Why should the actor, playing upon the most divine 
of instruments, the human body, rest content upon 
the mere supposition that within that body lies, un- 
aided by any special concentration of mentality, devel- 
opment of expression, or cultivation of speech, the 
intuitive instincts to reproduce the varied and lofty 
types of superior humanity? Perhaps at our birth a 
vocation may be given us; but it is in our individual 



MAR 26 1907 

—12— 

self to make that vocation what the best forces of 
nature through character, energy and cultivation are 
capable of attaining. That can only be done by a 
serious respect for the vocation, a devotion to its 
best aims, and willing drudgery. There is no con- 
dition of the theatre so open to great possibilities 
for the employment of these stipulations as is apparent 
in the combination system of today. 



Number twelve of " Stage Affairs/' appearing 
April 2, 1907, concerns : 

THE DRAMATIC SCHOOL. 

ITS FUTILE RESULTS. 



190/ 

-«_ Copyright Entry 






Stage Affairs in America Today* 

—BY- 
ALLEN DAVENPORT. 



XII. 
THE DRAMATIC SCHOOL. 

ITS FUTILE RESULTS. 

There are some academies of dramatic art in Amer- 
ica, which in a wishful serious intention to prepare 
men and women for the profession of acting, possess 
many virtues. They employ studies with fundamental 
principles, expounding to a creditable degree, through 
stages of proper progression, a general outline of the 
expressions chiefly to be employed in the art of acting. 
These schools certainly do no positive harm; and 
would, perhaps (if sought by men and women pos- 
sessed with a desire to work patiently through a more 
extended course of instruction), accomplish worthy 
things, if — provided a fitting medium reciprocating, 
fostering and maintaining, to a substantial degree, 
the preparatory intentions of such academies, colleges, 
schools of oratory and dramatic art, and so eventually 
might prove of some positive benefit to the institution 
of the theatre and the true cause of dramatic art. 



— 2— 

There is another class, however, a vile abomination 
masquerading under the name — school of acting. At 
the head is generally to be found a man or a woman, 
retired, often forced from active service, now seeking 
a living by ruthlessly transmitting to stage-struck men 
and women (under the guise of dramatic instruction) 
the mannerisms, defects, ignorance and (often times) 
illiteracy, — baneful conditions that "y ears of experi- 
ence" have generally magnified the more, — of himself 
(or herself), and untutored assistants, not hardly one 
of whom has ever had a respectful care for the true 
significance of the art of acting. And they form the 
faculty, if I may ab-use the term, of a school of dra- 
matic art. These schools generally charge a tuition fee 
of about four hundred dollars for a term of six 
months' duration, three hundred of which must be 
deposited in advance, the other one hundred at the 
expiration of one-half of the term. Did these schools 
accomplish anything towards advancing the pupil to 
a desirable preparatory state to enter the profession of 
acting, we would have little to say; but they do not, 
and it is unreasonable to suppose they ever could. 

I know from personal acquaintance, and through 
information gained from many of the pupils (by their 
voluntary confessions), the existing conditions in 
these schools. An instructor in one volunteered this 
brazen conviction: — "I'll tell you how I handle 'em. 
I stand 'em up in front of me, and say, — now you act 
and talk just as though you were in your own parlor, — 
that's all acting is." Confessions from the pupils of 
these schools verified the above statement. The "meth- 
ods" of other instructors are equally as incomplete 



—3— 

and wholly dependent on the pupil's crude aptness. 
They provide themselves with play books; parts are 
assigned to them, and they are given to understand 
that in the mere confused rehearsing of them they are 
getting a practical sufficient preparatory stage training 
in the ridiculously short space of a few months, in ill- 
fitting environments, and under the willing direction 
of men and women who, of course, must know too 
well the presumptousness and impossibility of any one 
attempting, under such conditions, to impart a pre- 
paratory knowledge even of the art of the actor. 

These schools are glaring examples of obtaining 
money under false pretences, and of the unreasoned 
actions of many men and women to quickest feed their 
feverish germs of "stage struckedness." In the major- 
ity of cases, young men and women who enter these 
schools are literally defrauded of their money, and fin- 
ally left as destitute of an immediate prospect of a 
stage career as though they had never forsook the 
cheery comforts of home, then minus these comforts 
plus the unavoidable discommodiousness and disturb- 
ances of boarding house life. Or else, and more to 
be censured and less to be pitied, they miss their sole 
purpose in courting one of these schools, — to get on the 
stage, not to study a great art. 

To become proficient in the arts men and women 
must prepare and study for years to gain such advance- 
ment, and to attain a desired finish to their studious 
efforts. Acting is an art! Its incumbents carve the 
inscription — artist. Yet what do they studiously en- 
dure to deserve it? The sculptor, the painter, the 
musician, the instrumentalist pass years in study to 



rightfully claim the appellation — artist. They must 
possess natural inclinations for their art of course, but 
where that stops their work begins, if they would be- 
come artists in the cultured sense of the term. To be 
sure it is not always necessary to study to be able to 
play "tunes" and "jigs"; but you must if you want 
to play something more. The stage is strewn with men 
and women who can play only "tunes" and "jigs," — 
and then not always do they play in tune. Such have 
no right to profess an art of which they have no care- 
ful knowledge, nor ambition to seek the means to pro- 
cure one, nor even a desire to so do ! 

Over twenty years ago a movement was started in 
America to "reform the drama." Its immediate scene 
of action was at a theatre in the vicinity of Broadway 
and Twenty-third street, New York City. This re- 
form was to be effected principally through the instill- 
ing into the incumbents of the company at this theatre, 
and the pupils of its preparatory school, the teachings 
of a truly great philosopher, and his discovery and 
revelations of laws governing man's expressions. The 
direct intent of the introduction of this system (as op- 
posed to established methods of other theatres) was, 
to quote from an official on the business staff of the 
first named theatre, to pit "brains against experience — 
intelligence against traditions" ; and its confident hope 
was, to again quote and now from an authority in the 
art department of this theatre, — "the development of a 
new stock of actors" ; and to quote further, "the novice 
accomplishes now in two years what was done by the 
old actor in fifteen years." Here let me say that the 
mention of this system is intended only in so far as 



—5— 

it may serve to the more fittingly connect the facts I 
am about to state, and not in any manner intended to 
gainsay the inestimable value of that great teacher's 
wonderful revelations when viewed as philosophy, and 
pursued as such. 

Employed under the proprietorship of this theatre, 
as its executive head, was a gentleman who has since 
risen to notorious individual distinction in the affairs 
of the American stage. He was assisted by his two 
brothers, one of whom today shares at least an equal, 
if not a greater position of distinction than the one 
first mentioned. It may be truly said that the greater 
part of the history of the "theatrical doings" of the 
last twenty years in America is the history of the "ven- 
tures" of these two gentlemen. The stage manager of 
this theatre (and what the term truly implies) was 
a talented personage, who today stands, in the true sig- 
nificance of the word, a stage manager pre-eminent: 
and in so far as his judgment and practice has allowed 
him to proceed, an exceedingly wise one, in that he 
ever unerringly selects foundational colors secure 
enough upon which to rest the textures of his varied 
technical and architectural skill. 

In connection with this theatre was another gentle- 
man — cultured, learned; working (as we have no 
doubt) ideally, honestly and enthusiastically at that 
time. He was termed "dramatic director," and also 
"dramatic scientist." This gentleman had (to quote 
again), — "the sympathy and co-operation" of the pro- 
prietor and the executive head of this theatre. Since 
the inception of that theatre, in its honest purpose to 
"reform the drama," and up to the present hour, this 



gentleman has been virtually (if earlier with an 
occasional change of base) at the head of an academy of 
dramatic arts, and receiving throughout its existence, 
— "the sympathy and co-operation" of the great power 
which has held for many years, by its managerial prom- 
inence, the best patronage which the theatre can boast. 
Into the channel of this controlling power, this much 
coveted medium for histrionic endeavor, might freely 
enter and abound, — the "brains" that were to offset 
"experience," the "intelligence" that was to take the 
place of "traditions," — conditions which were to effect 
in time "the development of a new stock of actors." 

Throughout the evolution of this movement begun 
over twenty years ago to "reform the drama," and to 
the present time, not one name of any special worth or 
permanent continuance has been supplied through the 
medium of such academy of dramatic arts fostered by 
the sympathetic and co-operate help of the most prom- 
inent and energetic managerial force of the time. The 
many names of histrionic splendor that illumined the 
daily records of the stage at the inception of this ref- 
ormation of the drama have mostly passed on to stage 
history, and there inerasable stand, casting honor and 
distinction on the American stage by the highest de- 
velopment of their talents attained through rightfully 
pursued long experience, and a sane adherence to the 
best traditions properly adjusted to the present envi- 
ronments, constantly promoted and bettered by a ra- 
tional application of "brains" and "intelligence" put 
to their highest uses at all times. They required learn- 
ing; they became scholars, — self-thoughtful, educated 
men and women. 



—7— 

"The development of a new stock of actors" by dra- 
matic science, wherein "the novice accomplishes now 
in two years" by brains and intelligence "what was 
done by the old actor in fifteen years" by experience 
and traditions , has not been accomplished ; the desired 
resultant condition of these combined forces working 
in "sympathy and co-operation" is not in any way ap- 
parent. A new stock may have been developed, but 
it exists only in a degenerate state of histrionic an- 
cestry in its inefficiency to cope with the brain exac- 
tions and thoughtful intelligence necessary to strength- 
en experience and to properly adjust the present con- 
ditions to the best traditions of the stage in an ade- 
quate exposition of dramatic art. 

If this bond of "sympathy and co-operation" has been 
an honest one there can be no disgrace in the failure 
of its purposes. But if one part of its stipulate force, 
in its flight for ideals and reformation in the drama, 
may have surrendered and succumbed to the managerial 
conduct of its sympathetic and co-operate ally, know- 
ing the impossibility of promoting and advancing art 
through the channels of that ally's supreme spirit of 
commercial monopoly, then such an academy of dra- 
matic arts is no more than an institution advertising 
and existing first and all-important for mere pecuniary 
gain, draining into the cesspool of degenerate histrion- 
ism any willing substance that may be caught in the 
vortex of its commercial whirl. Its mission, speaking 
through its non-resultant effects, has become worth- 
less ; and through its inability to regenerate a worthy 
stock of actors, bespeaks its unfitness either way, — 
through the failure of its honest endeavors to carry out 



its original design, or through its subservience to an 
improper medium into which it may graduate its pu- 
pils, — and holds no boast to any reformation of the 
drama. 

The so-called "school of dramatic art," the very es- 
sence of hopeless futility, should be declaimed into the 
refuse of its self-spoken worthlessness ! 



Number thirteen of "Stage Affairs" appearing April 
9, 1907, concerns : 

ACTING. 

ITS TANGIBILITY AS AN ART TO BE STUDIED. 



Stage Affairs in America Today* 



—BY- 
ALLEN DAVENPORT. 



:• *• xiii. 

ACTING. 

ITS TANGIBILITY AS AN ART TO BE STUDIED. 

Before there can be a truly great national drama, 
American dramatists must first learn a true signifi- 
cance of the barbaric nobility and crude splendor of 
its original natural occupancy, of its valiant struggle 
against the usurpation of unequally equipped civiliza- 
tion. It must justly view through the epochs of 
Columbus, Washington and Lincoln the evolution of 
the stern necessities then essential to fittingly expose, 
uplift, and finally apply the early latent, unencouraged, 
but significantly founded, intellectuality of this prim- 
itive and rightful claimant to its land. Find in that 
source an idealism for true exaltedness, stripped of 
the patois inconsequence, the sole physical heroism 
that has ever cheapened its best possibilities, and give 
to it a language, that it may bespeak through a pointed 
diction, the loftiest motives and deeds of its noblest 
people and foremost individual personages. We may 
then see for our country the possible worthiness of 



— 2— 

its perpetuity in the records of valuable dramaturgy. 
I am speaking, of course, from the standpoint of a 
highest understood knowledge of the true importance 
of our theatre. 

The American play of today for the most part 
caricatures Americanism. It finds much favor, it is 
true, particularly in congested populations; it amuses 
most generally, perhaps. Although in the districts 
whose people it caricatures it is often severely crit- 
icised and many times censured and ridiculed for its 
impudent exaggerations, still even there it amuses 
and exhilarates by the sole fact of its sauciness; but 
this is not the American play. Nor does it consist 
in the squabbling exposition of squalid disturbances 
of oppressing opulency, and ignorant understanding 
of justifiable competence; nor in the unbalanced preju- 
dices of our great national crises. The national 
drama lies in the idealizing and justly balancing of the 
virtues and vices of its truly important periods and 
personages, their events and deeds, through the in- 
tellectuality, elegance and errectualness of simplicity, 
intermediary and sublimity in the diction of its native 
tongue. 

Today the American playwright transplaces com- 
mon incidents and types of everyday existence to 
the environed illusiveness of the stage. It is no 
severe task to so do ; and it is no special consequence 
to interpret such. Everyday life is crowded with 
individuals possessing dramatic instincts, capable in 
their crude origin of interpreting such commonplace- 
ness. And yet, this limited natural endowment is, 
generally speaking, in America to-day the accepted 
standard of an estimation of the art of acting. In the 
name of traditioned achievements and witnessed art 



—3— 

in true histrionic ability, the gods forbid that it should 
forever so remain. 

Not long ago a foremost player, one annually tour- 
ing this country, spoke upon the subject, "The Art 
of Acting." His discourse was afterwards, in an 
improved state, published. When all was said, it 
might be summed up thus : That after all, as com- 
pared with other arts, there was nothing tangible to 
acting, and — that " actors, like poets, are born, not 
made." A direct contradiction, it would seem to me, 
to the title of the subject matter of his discourse. 
Considerably more than ten years ago this actor es- 
sayed one of the great classic roles. At that time, 
as well as now, he was enjoying truly deserved pop- 
ularity in a line of interesting parts. Much concern 
was manifested in his ambitious departure from well 
trodden paths. In critical opinion and in public ex- 
pectancy, he failed totally. On the evening of the 
second performance, before the play proceeded, he 
called the principal members of the company to his 
dressing room, and (unheedful of the well-meant crit- 
icism and advice bestowed) admonished his associates 
that, notwithstanding the unmerciful " slating " re- 
ceived, they " must have the courage of their con- 
victions." He travelled to another city. The same 
result. He finally defied fate in the great theatrical 
centre of all. His failure was complete. Since that 
time, many years ago, I have not known of his essay- 
ing any role of truly classic distinction. 

He is an actor endowed by nature for the stage; 
let us confess — a born actor. Resonant, sonorous 
(yet flexible and mellow) voice, classic mould of 
features. Physical proportions of beautiful natural 
symmetry, free from defects and deformities. He 



possesses repose, elegance and energy. Although en- 
dowed by nature to adorn the poetic, classic drama, 
he could not even approximate the test; he did not 
(we will say) supply the art, without which all the 
attributes of nature were naught. And now today 
he recognizes nothing tangible in the art of acting. 
No, "actors, like poets, are born, not made." 

If we are willing to accept every kind and condi- 
tion of rhymster and versifier who heedlessly heaps 
his untutored, illiterate musings on our heads, and so 
proclaim him poet, then indeed may the actor with 
justification find in his untaught condition an equal 
claim to ready consideration. But I do not believe 
it is so adjudged, although the art of poesy has too 
long been left to sad neglect, and indiscriminately 
made a mart for wanton cunning to ply his trade. 
This type of both poet and actor has quite long 
enough boasted a " corner " in the " divine gift " 
market. The genuine poet must be the scholar, ardent 
student, profound thinker. Therein reposes, immov- 
able, his true greatness. It is that learning, that mental 
discipline, which transforms invention and fancy into 
transcendental verse. Merely a prismatic reflex tinge 
of that richly founded storehouse, learning, running 
off into tints of infinite poetic beauty. That is art. 
The art of poesy. It is that same quality of scholarly, 
studious, profound thoughtfulness, disciplined mental 
concentration, that must equally predominate in every 
strife for histrionic splendor. 

I shall herein briefly expose the method of pro- 
cedure of this worthy player just now mentioned, re- 
garding the production of the classic play then under 
consideration. This estimable actor and gentleman 
personally directed, with automatical autocracy, all his 



—5— 

players. His prompt book was arranged from the 
" first folio " edition of the play, which, it is gen- 
erally conceded, abounds in misprints, and words 
whose obsoleteness become, in a stubborn retention 
of them, matters of absurdity and indiscretion in a 
present-day production of any play wherein they 
originally appeared. The parts distributed to the 
players were typewritten ones, and badly done at that. 
But the appearance (at rehearsals?) of any printed 
edition of the play was, regarding the possessor, a 
cause for instant censure and admonition against fur- 
ther offending. The rehearsals to this great classic 
play were conducted precisely as if it had been a 
modern composition, in that it was continually and 
vitally altered and re-altered in text and " business " 
from the day of the first rehearsal to the very last 
moment preceding the opening performance. Such 
conditions, especially in the preparation of a standard 
work, are abominable, unwise, and totally unnecessary. 
But another matter wholly eclipsed this state of 
wasteful energy and nerve force. It was the glar- 
ing unpreparedness in the company to meet in any 
degree at all the simplest exactions of this universally 
popular classic. And in this state of unpreparedness, 
the one most particularly soliciting favor and patron- 
age stood a self-evinced culprit, albeit he earnestly 
avowed that he had made of the part a life study. 
The rendition of the diction, and the determining and 
employing of stage " business," was very largely a 
matter of chance. No attempt to essay a character 
of such truly classic distinction could succeed, nor 
should it deserve to, when the chief factor to its 
highest exposition had formed no settled knowledge 
of the possibilities and essential force of its elocu- 



tionary importance. The whole play was arranged 
for performance as at the first might have been any 
of the modern ones contained in the repertoire of 
this born actor. 

No one was ever truly great through nature's gifts 
alone. The highest knowledge of their possession, 
and the energy to righteously pursue them, alone 
could make him so. To that end we must accept 
some tangible form, and become a slave in our fidelity 
to its teachings, if we would wish to attain true 
exaltedness. The above notable case is but one of 
many among those enjoying high distinction in the 
theatre who repudiate any system or suggestion that 
could be employed to establish the art of acting on 
a tangible basis. 

Inspiration is the compensation the work makes for 
an earnest, ardent love and devotion to it. Success 
is in sitting down to it, going at it, and sticking to 
it until you arrive at something. Through steadily 
concentrated energy, perseverance and patience it pro- 
claims the genius. Rational minds now discard all 
sentiment regarding a ready acceptance of the mys- 
tical phrases — " divine gift from Above," and " in- 
spiration from Heaven." These beliefs have long 
stayed true greatness from a just appreciation, and 
too often dethroned its solid majesty to lightly place 
thereon instead the blustering actions of ill-applauded, 
dazzling pretence. 

Art accomplishment (and I believe every kind of 
workmanship) is the reducing to some use by a fit- 
tingly regulated physical medium an imaged pur- 
pose of the consciousness ; each receiving its realiza- 
tion through the mind's activity. That purpose may 
have been conceived for good or for evil. The quality 



—7— 

of importance assumed by the thing so developed 
depends upon the degree of energy exercised by the 
force employed to finally materialize the imaged orig- 
inal ; that force is — the mind, the power speeding 
the inner and outer functions to the consummation 
of the former's conception and the latter's workman- 
ship. In proportion to its native soundness will this 
original conception, if properly developed, be felt in 
its ultimate beneficence. And the reverse may be 
said if its origin is malicious. Neither the force of 
physical energy nor the purpose of the soul can 
develop clear through a sordid mind. There is as 
much opportunity for immorality in art as in any- 
thing else, if the mind directs the way. 

Mentality commands art as it does every high 
motived trait of human endeavor. The only differ- 
ence is in the medium to be used to effect their high- 
est development. Some impulsive desire frets rest- 
lessly in every soul waiting to burst into some sphere 
of activity. It often unrestrainedly obeys such im- 
pulse, and then, like an illy regulated electric current, 
not only mars the controlling mediums meant to 
check such impulsiveness, but also irretrievably dis- 
sipates the force itself. Unrestrained, impulsive dra- 
matic instincts (fretful desires for histrionic display) 
should, before allowed to act, find ready a well regu- 
lated medium to guard against any tendency towards 
an impetuous, exaggerated, and over-emphasized 
essayal in the dangerous freedom of their crude ori- 
gin — apparatuses dispensing to the best purposes 
the power they control. To try to handle the vital 
electric fluid with one's bare hands is dangerous. So 
it is to think of manipulating the indefinable source 
of dramatic instinct without effecting regulators to 
distribute it. 



To apply rules which shall specially (or generally) 
govern physical manifestations of emotions and pas- 
sions, such as — agony, exasperation, joy, sorrow, 
courage, fear, rage, suspicion, love, reflection, mod- 
esty, shame, respect, veneration, malice, scorn, sur- 
prise, horror, defiance, grief, convulsiveness, laughter, 
despair, melancholy, terror, wonder, contempt, hate, 
adoration, imbecility, death, etc., etc., etc. — is as im- 
practicable and damaging to the highest possibilities 
of dramatic expression as would be the application 
of set rules to the free development of the innumer- 
able combinations of musical harmonies so irrevo- 
cably necessary to the loftiest attainment of music 
sound expression. It is in the existence of this un- 
restrained condition in which the unlimited variations, 
combinations and possibilities of expressions are left 
open to the mentally controlled imagination (with its 
afforded inspiration, if you wish) of the actor, that 
the vital strength and endurance of his art lives and 
thrives. It is in the highest understanding, devel- 
opment and perfection of the medium of this ex- 
pression that must give the intellectual, graceful and 
effective finish to any art expression. All differences 
of mediums have one common fundament — mental- 
ity! It is in a correct settlement of such fundament, 
and a proper progression and development, through 
a sustained systematic application of it, to an approxi- 
mate state of finish, that qualifies one to a justifiable 
practice of that art as a profession. The elevation 
of the stage, at the present hour, is a simple fact 
of organisation, and — a significant qualification. To 
guarantee a general condition of stability and con- 
fidence, such qualification should be attendant on the 
broad opportunities of preceptorial higher education. 



— 9— 

The mere sense of expression (or poetic feeling) 
never vivified marble nor canvas. A skilful and ar- 
tistic knowledge of a proper use of the instruments 
to be employed in the manifestation of expression (or 
poetic feeling) must be acquired before it can be 
possible to beautifully reveal any sense of expression. 
This should apply to the art of acting as well. The 
fact that in acting the likeness is revealed, not through 
inanimate substance, but animate being, promotes and 
encourages the belief that acting cannot be equally 
classified with the other fine arts, and that its expo- 
sition is almost wholly a matter of untrained natural 
endowments, into which must become immerged the 
character to be portrayed, instead of a highly culti- 
vated state of the medium of expression, the human 
body, made ready and fit to adapt itself to all modes 
and forms of expression, and concealing by this art 
its very self in the character type portrayed. Thus 
we find a general misapplication of the instrument of 
expression in acting, and the realms of art usurped 
by the personality, whims and caprices of the actor. 

Criticism on acting is largely given from the view- 
point of the mere observed effect, and not from any 
special knowledge of particular insight into techni- 
calities governing the medium or instrument of ex- 
pression. Therefore actors having parts fitting them 
well, and blessed with personal charms, mannerisms 
and peculiarities readily adaptable to such parts, if 
they can but maintain a proper degree of self control 
and be natural, that is, play themselves, their success 
immediately therein is assured. But set them to the 
task of creating types, or essaying to attain proficiency 
in superior types of nobility and eloquent grandeur, 
they conspicuously fail. Here even the invaluable 



—10— 

and seldom accredited assistance of the genuine art 
of wig maker and costumer cannot poultice the form 
into histrionic healthiness. To be endowed by nature 
with rare personal charms, exceptional voice, and 
graceful bearing is unquestionably of undisputed 
value, but of no permanent worth if not regulated 
and skilfully applied through an intelligent cultiva- 
tion of the instruments which manifest these qual- 
ities. 

But it is not necessary to know our organism to 
understand and exhibit our art. Technical training 
in art is not to give freedom to the soul that it may 
properly manifest its workings; it is to control that 
freedom that it may not over or understate its mani- 
festations. Thus it becomes art. A violin player need 
not know the construction of his violin, his bow, — 
the laws governing the vibratory causes and effects 
of his technical skill; mental philosophy, psychology, 
and so on ; these are not necessary to an effectual 
exposition of his skill. The highest degree of 
philosophical research still places unlimited possibil- 
ities ahead. They must, of course, prove helpful, and 
are sought by the student artist after the essential 
fundaments have been firmly settled. The human 
body is the actor's instrument of expression. He 
plays upon that. He should not enter upon a stage 
career of serious purpose without the possession of 
a properly attuned instrument capable of adequately 
responding to the skill of the trained performer. No 
self-respecting instrumentalist would deign to engage 
in an exhibition of his skill unless in the possession 
of a fitly made instrument capable of displaying his 
highest technical skill at least, and permitting at the 
same time of the most exalted manifestations of vari- 



—li- 
able expression in that degree to which his mentally 
controlled imagination, emotional power, and such 
qualities may lead him. No untrained person should 
be allowed to go upon the stage ! It is not so held in 
America today. The actor's vocation is never a pro- 
fession, — it is not often a business, although beset as 
such ; it is not even a livelihood. The actor of today 
is, in general self-evinced proclivities, a vagrant, petty 
speculator. But he owes much of this depravity to 
the unmitigated indifference of the dominant manager 
of today to any just regard of his true mission in the 
conduction of his trade. 

It is true that there have been flashed upon the 
world at times untutored great histrionic personages, 
some possessing startling physical and vocal deformi- 
ties, eccentricities and woful mannerisms. Such ones 
will always find a place independent of any condition 
or regulation governing the special sphere in which 
they shine. But even with such the time came when 
they were obliged to possess acknowledged control- 
ment of the causes and effects of their unregulated 
forces, and become studious and learned, duly tem- 
pered, or else be early consumed in the focus of their 
fiery brilliancy. To what tremendous grandeur of 
enduring possibilities these quick blossoming, showy, 
but soon failing flowers might have reached had some 
discipline been early settled and rightly directed, to be 
later developed by the individual greatness through 
studiousness and concentrated energy! This may 
seem mere speculation to many, but to any thoughtful 
person, such an advantage (to the one seriously 
inclined, devotedly attached, and ambitiously moved) 
must be seen to be of untold benefit and lasting 
endurance. 



—12— 

America today is leading in the importance of 
world affairs. It is supplying all walks of life with 
strong personages. It is providing prodigious means 
for educational help in all these walks. Unlimited 
beneficence is being graciously bestowed to promote 
and maintain that which is truly worthy of assistance. 
The arts are not being wholly neglected. The theatre 
might gain securely a place upon the list of these 
beneficiaries. But to do so it must be found worthy 
in purpose, true to the best possible ends of that pur- 
pose, and honestly and consistently conducted through 
some significant qualification! 



Number fourteen of " Stage Affairs," appearing 
April 16, 1907, concerns : 

SHAKESPEARE, 

THE FUTURE HIGHEST VALUE OF HIS PLAYS TO THE 
STAGE. 



Stage Affairs in America Today, 



—BY- 
ALLEN DAVENPORT. 



XIV. 
SHAKESPEARE, 

THE FUTURE HIGHEST VALUE OF HIS PLAYS TO THE 
STAGE. 

"To hold — (as't were) — the mirror up to na- 
ture; to show — virtue her own feature, scorn her 
own image, and — the very age and body of the time 
his form and pressure." 

This was, is, and ever will be, the essence of the 
teaching that Shakespeare imparted and bequeathed 
to the men and women of the stage, — the manager, 
the playwright, the actor, — the co-essential union 
which, in its co-efficient, co-harmonious plan, consti- 
tutes the highest standard of the institution of the 
theatre. 

And therein lies, moreover, the spirit of every text 
that has invariably forced its way into all discourses 
of any consequence which have ever been written or 
spoken concerning the " art of acting." 

Therein is revealed a duty, a religion, a system of 
procedure, (you might call it a faith, a worship if you 
wished) for the beneficent institution of the theatre, 
and to those devoted men and women who would 
truthfully send its mission forth to the world. 



Therein exists a tangible formula, which, when 
evolved into a system, significantly founded, consist- 
ently followed, and sincerely reverenced, would truly 
establish a condition of qualification for the profession 
of the theatre as beneficial, vast and lasting as that of 
any other vocation known to the world, not excepting 
that of the church. With common sense meaning one 
might say that in a religious adoption of such a 
system lay — the redemption and salvation of the 
theatre. i j 

Nearly all the truly great achievements in the 
theatre have been found in the unition of this trinity 
force (playwright-manager-actor) in some surpassing 
individuality. In all which has been worthiest has 
ever been seen a continual strife to gain, through stu- 
dious inclining and thoughtful concentration, some 
eventual recognition in the poetic classic drama, — and 
most distinctly in the plays of Shakespeare. If therein 
lies the strength of all which has been best and endur- 
ing in the theatre, it would seem to be no more nor 
less than common sense, and practicably tangible, to 
methodically head and navigate on such " dead 
reck'ning." The predominant educational possibili- 
ties of such disciplinary learning can not with truth- 
fulness be gainsaid. And when you have secured a 
qualified graduation, a degree, for such trained 
instruction, you have in all dignity insured an unde- 
niable " status " for such scholarly progression, where 
indeed all such possessory owners may truly be said 
to enjoy, in equable estimation with their associates, 
the positive occupancy of a profession. 

Shakespeare's plays must not be lost to the sight of 
the actor. In the steady re-adaptation to which they 
are constantly being put to fit them more congruously 
to the advanced appliances and methods of these 



—3— 

palmy days of highly progressed mechanism and 
painters' art, we are in eventual fearful danger of such 
a compromising condition. Today in America, the 
actor (generally speaking) has little learned knowl- 
edge of the glossy ruggedness, inspiring awfulness, 
and immutable beauties of the original designs of this 
Himalayan Histrionic Supremacy. It is as though 
the clergyman were accorded his ordination totally 
unlearned in the manifold blessings, and o'er-towering 
sovereignty of the Bible. The actor owns scarcely 
more than a fleeting retention of the few lines he is 
compelled to speak in a passing presentation of some 
one of the " specially " prepared versions of this 
poetic-drama chain of unsevered links, which must 
ever, in imperishable grandeur, hold together the insti- 
tution of the theatre. 

The Shakespeare religion of yesterday is still the 
religion of the future. It must not be understood 
that I would assertively exalt the theatre above the 
Church; no indeed. It is in the most perfect allied 
condition of the home, the school, and the Church 
that their consummate unition — the State — must find 
its trust grandeur. And we see here, in the co- essen- 
tial parts of this trinity, the predominant, vital im- 
portance of its mental centre — education. It is through 
the highest power of education that the greatest 
national welfare has ever existed. The home (the 
physical charge) and the Church (the moral care) 
equip through co-efficient, co-harmonious alliance 
with the school (the mental activity essential to the 
highest understanding of body and soul) the medium 
of the State's achievements — intellectual and sound 
men and women. Every vocation, art and trade should 
be an embodiment of this trinity. And as each hon- 
estly strove for exaltedness and supremacy, so should 



it be equally regarded and rewarded in its special 
beneficence to that consummated unition — the State. 
And to that extent that each might dishonestly and 
viciously maintain its practices, just to that extent 
should it be equally condemned and punished. 

In every lasting beneficence to a nation or to man- 
kind, we see the single force of some great leadership. 
Christ lived in the time of atheism and hypocritical 
formalism. It is illogical to bring every letter of 
his then well-timed, needed teachings into this en- 
lightened age. The evolution of their then prophetic 
significance has brought their spiritual beneficence 
now to us here on earth. But the idealism of the man 
grows more o'ertowering as the ages appear. The 
spirit of his leadership defies the doubt of thoughtful 
man. The emulation of his indestructible singleness 
is still the immovable staff which shall ever command 
the immortal grasp of the Church. But we also con- 
fess a leadership in other men. Two centuries and 
a quarter after the death of Confucius his works were 
burned and hundreds of his believers buried alive. 
But the leadership of the man is paramount today. 
Caesar — " the foremost man of all this world " — 
" the noblest man that ever lived in the tide of times " 
(murdered by the innocence of his nobility) will ever 
be heard through his leadership in a literary purity 
of a fundamental language, as unshaken today as ever 
by the dissoluble qualities of national motherhood. 

Shakespeare is such as these. No vain supremacy 
of facetious pomposity can ever obliterate the lustre 
of his immortal leadership. What rational mind can 
deny the predominance of the English tongue today? 
What reputable speech cannot pronounce its paragon ! 
What massed endangerments of gibberish " isms " 
(unstayed by the timidity of changing politics, selfish 



—5— 

ambitions, and legislative corruption) can ever, in 
their gathering gloom, obscure the brightness of this 
solitary leadership ? Why, then, longer lend the slight- 
est aid to the ill-weaponed assailants of such an 
uncensurable fortress, who strive to bury in the ashes 
of ill-burned pages such fadeless perennity? Throw 
wider open this vault of histrionic completeness. It 
shall vindicate us ! 

In a researchful study of the works of Shakespeare 
we may claim an ownership to a rather concise text- 
book of the history and best uses of our modern lan- 
guage. He who so wills may hold the front door 
key to the house of sufficient knowledge ; a possession 
which, if used, and the domain once entered, will in- 
cite a voluntary and eager desire to ransack the whole 
house. That such advantage has been long and uni- 
versally accepted, and constantly increases in interest 
to all thoughtful and educated people is, beyond all 
doubt, most true. Although I offer no positive sta- 
tistics to verify the following statement (I do not 
believe it to be necessary), yet, from my intimate 
acquaintance with every condition of stage folk, and 
my critical observance of the better class of theatre 
goers, I do not hesitate to say that, from both an 
educational point of view and as a divertisement, this 
enjoyable practical text-book of our language finds 
by far greater odds more reverence, devotion, and un- 
derstandment from the people who view the stage 
than from those being viewed, generally speaking. 
Such a condition is diametrically wrong. 

Shakespeare was originally and distinctly of and 
for the theatre. In the presentation alone of his 
plays still offering a measure of adaptability to 
present-day stage appointments, how can he command 
proper attention when the medium through which he 



is interpreted underrates in comprehension the gen- 
eral understanding of the auditors to whom this 
medium labors to reveal the depths and grandeur of 
the poet's tremendousness ? To say that the educa- 
tional importance of these plays bears no kin to the 
highest development of their dramatic possibilities, 
that is, that an actor need not become a Shakespearian 
student to be enabled to forcibly delineate the person- 
ages of these marvellous works, bears much truth, it 
is true. The inerasable nobility and lasting perma- 
nency of their diction affords even mediocre inherent 
dramatic ability a vast scope for theatrical display. 
But it is that very potency of the predominance of 
the poet's diction that exalts the player, and by self- 
satisfaction of that exaltedness, too often fills him 
with a sense of proficiency which robs him of the 
thought of any necessity to better understand (that 
in such higher knowledge he may the better and more 
powerfully interpret) the great themes and varia- 
tions of this genius composer. And thereby (and of 
far more importance) immeasurably add to his qual- 
ification for the art he possesses. The actor pauses 
at that point where his natural aptness finds a ready 
applicability. There is where he should begin. 

If in a research of the works of Shakespeare we 
see a text-book of educational value, we furthermore 
see in these dramatic inspirations, ranging as they 
do from the simplest language to the sublimest flights 
of dramaturgy, and encompassing every mood and 
manner of possible expression, text- books for play- 
writer and actor, if regulated into practical, prepara- 
tory and progressive systems of instruction. The 
adoption of such (prefaced with elementary training 
in the fundaments of play writing and acting), 
coupled with a compulsory discipline in its accom- 



panying educational research (a vital importance), 
does not seem beneath the highest ratification of our 
institutions of learning, in a collegiate course, grad- 
uating its students, after proper qualification, into 
some established medium of activity maintained (at 
least at first) by endowment and legacy, and furnish- 
ing to the incumbent the status necessary to insure a 
dignity and following that such a calling is worthy of. 

The works of Shakespeare cannot remain forever 
available to dramatic representation. I believe for 
centuries yet they may still be played. But they are 
a legacy to the stage as great and imperishable as any 
bequeathed to this world. They are the exaltation 
of the stage. It has never known a true condition of 
stability, a hope of permanency, or a continuancy of 
unshakable grandeur. Here, exemplifying the inmost 
nobility of all that ever entered, trod, and transcended 
the stage and drama, lies dormant, through a lack of 
right devotion and highest use, the redemption, salva- 
tion, and indissoluble perpetuity of the theatre ! 

The day will sometime come when mere controversy 
regarding the possibility or audacity of rightfully or 
falsifiably imprinting some appellative usurpation to 
the images of his creating must cease, worn away by 
the bristling opposition that its friction aroused. That 
critical analysis and discussion of these plays has 
always been, and must ever go on, is the vital exist- 
ence of their educational worth. Here the research 
must be deep. We must seek to restore, theorize, and 
speculate. But their fanciful beauties must not become 
marred nor lost in critical exaction. We should not 
forget that we are working in the visionary realms 
of the theatre. And to that extreme in which we 
indulge our desire for educational advantages, just 
to that opposite end must we seek to expurgate, 



eliminate, and regulate these dramas to modern uses 
in presentation; to make them, in preservation of 
theme and individual characterization, suitable, adapt- 
able, and entertaining to present-day expectancy. It 
would be folly to run the stage coach of Colonial 
times in the grooves of the roadbeds of the advanced 
railway systems of today. But I doubt if the stuff 
now so conveyed has grown approximately better by 
the superior methods of such ultraism. 

I believe if the great playwright himself could 
appear among us today, he would rearrange his lus- 
trous jewels in the most beautiful and effective set- 
tings that modern stagecraft would permit of. To 
present his plays now as they were supposed to have 
been performed in his day is a mere curiosity, val- 
uable principally in the immediate circle of educational 
importance. It would be like advertising some great 
virtuoso to play the " Moonlight " sonata on an in- 
strument in vogue in its incomparable composer's 
time, dressed in the fashion of the day. Or even 
more so. It would be a curiosity at most. If the 
theme and diction of these great masters be kept 
intact, it is no sacrilege or iconoclasm to emphasize 
the variegated colors of the robes that clothe them. 
But it must be done by those whose intellectual grasp 
and taste would sympathetically most qualify for such 
a task. Those who have become studiously and de- 
votedly imbued with the spirit through the happy 
discipline of such qualification. 

I do not maintain that a required qualification as 
previously herein outlined would ensure Shakespear- 
ian playwrights and actors, great men and women. 
The appearance from period to period of an array 
of great actors does not signify any special conse- 
quence to the stage, and, it is proved, does not 



—9— 

guarantee any subsequent general progressed condi- 
tion arising from their resplendent brief hour in the 
theatre. But, nevertheless, not one English speaking 
actor of any worthy individual distinction in the 
higher drama has ever denied an indebtedness to his 
devotion and study of Shakespeare for the degree 
of distinction to which he had risen. Absolute sat- 
isfaction through critical and public acceptance in the 
great roles of the dramatist may not have been his, 
but it was in the strife to attain that estimation in 
the Shakespeare drama that made him pre-eminently 
fitted to adorn and honor the stage and himself in 
special parts, for the best interpretation of which he 
had applied the results of his persistent struggle to 
o'ertop his gained supremacy by attention and favor 
in the essayal of some few of the classic roles. That 
is the test of any actor's genuine success or great- 
ness. In the annals of the stage of this hour, in 
recording the event of a truly deserved jubilee to 
an actress of unique superiority, it will be written 
that, in responding to her heartfelt gratitude for the 
loving honor paid to her devoted public service, this 
actress in a speech of telling briefness confessed that 
she owed everything to her training and education 
in Shakespeare. It is this spirit of duty, reverence 
and adherence, ingrafted at the inception of a stage 
career, that bears its golden fruits most abundantly. 
And it must be by a practical, systematic, compulsory 
discipline in Shakespeare, through educational chan- 
nels, that we shall see the stage truly exalted; that 
we shall attain in substantial, respected fact — a 
" profession of the theatre." How can any boast of 
the stage to an equality with other high vocations, 
a comparative importance with the Church in a 
beneficence to mankind, hold proper credence, when 



—10— 

there is no fixed qualification for admittance to its 
practices, and its encumbents are readily recruited 
from the ranks of ignorance, pretence and charlatanry, 
and with like indiscretion stubbornly maintained by 
the vulgar agent who instated them? 

Today in our large universities, departments of 
dramatic literature and oratory appear almost essen- 
tial to a most complete system of higher education. 
And yet it cannot be truthfully said that these auxil- 
iary needs find an outlet, a medium of positive 
significance for any future design of active perma- 
nency for those who may have taken advantage of 
them. But that is not to gainsay their natural value 
in such wise and general usage of them. But in such 
an acknowledged intrinsical initiative, what could we 
not with positive reasonableness see (in such a healthy 
stimulus) for the nucleus of a trial at least (I am 
tempted to say an educational duty) in the matter 
of a department of the theatre in leading universities ? 
I do not like to say drama. It is too limitable. It is 
time that the theatre began to command its true 
dignity and potency! 

Who can deny that embodied in the works of the 
great personage who most singularly with distinct 
individualism marked the highest exaltedness of the 
theatre, who vitalized it into imperishable grandeur, — 
who can gainsay that in the illitigatable legacy of this 
simple man, who, as playwright-actor-manager, in 
that unity proclaiming the immortality of the con- 
summation of such unition, the theatre, — who can 
deny in such a spirit of endless endurance the exist- 
ence of a formula to create a criterion of study, qual- 
ification and criticism, attainable through a compul- 
sory disciplinary system of procedure? Therein we 
see a duty, a faith, — an affection for the vocation. 



—11— 

Therein we find a high end to our worthy means ; 
no questionable means to our selfish ends. And 
therein we glorify the institution that our duty, faith 
and affection urges us to labor for. We are not 
entering it unprepared, unconcerned and unmeritedly, 
with feverish speculativeness, fretting it may over- 
look our glorification. Then the men and women of 
the stage find some equality of condition. There is 
some sense of true equity through this equal oppor- 
tunity of qualification. Here we find a status for the 
profession of the theatre. The playwright, the man- 
ager, the actor, ascend the rostrum with the same 
gained privilege as the clergyman his pulpit. The 
mere sock and buskin no longer proclaim the 
actor. The man has earned their significance, as the 
priest his cloth, and both should wear them sacred 
to the temple they adorn. The stage needs this con- 
ditional status as much as does the Church. 

The playwright-manager-actor, the theatre — must 
know this status, must obey this qualification, 
must reverence their high significance. In the sym- 
pathy and co-operation of such lies the unshaken 
grandeur of their temple. And those who accept 
such a call must not think that their mission to the 
world is more or less than that of any vocation that 
strives honestly and ideally to uplift the State, and 
so invoke its authoritative guardianship. But do not 
think that the rostrum of the theatre might not 
transcend the pulpit, if you will it so. Do not feel, 
when within its environments, that unrestraint which 
may loose your sense of ideality. The theatre must 
ever simulate. The Church is real. There nature 
shall be preached. The theatre holds as broad a 
beneficence to those who will hold its aim as high. 
The playwright-manager-actor must all be felt in the 



—12— 

idealism of the task. As great a battle may be lived 
and fought for individual supremacy as that inspired 
by the solitude of the pulpit. As honest a laurel 
awaits the victory. But we must maintain a fitting 
medium through which to consummate our qualifica- 
tion. 

Unshaken by the test of time, unassailable by the 
taunts of mortal cunning, the significant imperish- 
ableness of Shakespeare's leadership points the way 
to lasting grandeur and indissoluble exaltedness of 
the lofty design that such supreme immortality ever 
commands. To cast aside all skepticism and trum- 
pery attack, and — with a firm belief — to enlist 
under the sovereign laureateship of such absolute 
supremacy, and march to knowledged victory through 
a confidence in that belief, is the religion that shall 
lastingly preserve the highest purity of the theatre. 
The belief that waits on knowledge provokes the 
doubt that loses both. Forward — march! 



Number fifteen of " Stage Affairs/' appearing 
April 23, 1907, concerns: 

THE NEW THEATRE. 

A SUGGESTION REGARDING THE PERMANENT EXALTED- 
NESS OF THE STAGE. 



jLIBWAKY of CONGRESS 

Two Oopies Received 

APR 25 1^07 

/I Sopyrlffht Entry 

»/}V v '. / >/ / 7«7. 
JOUSS A XXc.,No 



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copy's. 



Stage Affairs in America Today* 

—BY- 
ALLEN DAVENPORT. 



XV. 
THE NEW THEATRE. 

A SUGGESTION REGARDING THE PERMANENT EXALTED- 
NESS OF THE STAGE. 

The establishment and stable maintenance of a 
national or municipal theatre in this country is un- 
reasonable to suppose. Existing political conditions 
do not permit of the conduction of either for the best 
desired purposes of the drama. We must look to the 
endowed theatre. But of what avail is such a thea- 
tre to the future of the stage if there is no condition 
of qualified substantiality required to enter, promote 
and maintain it? The endowed theatre then stands 
for no more than any other kind. 

A theatre under endowment should be a dramatic 
art institute with a standard of approximate highest 
attainment, by means of whicliHo encourage, advance, 
and uphold the best designs of- its workmanship ; and 
upon which to base criticism, stimulate taste, create 
discriminate judgment, and so advance amicable dis- 
cussion with tendency to harmonize opinions on stage 
representations. This theatre of dramatic art should, 




— 2— 

at all times, through its official independence to fur- 
nish suitable entertainment, beneficially persuade, 
amuse, and instruct. It should indeed, " Show — - 
virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and — 
the very age and body of the time his form and 
pressure." Such a theatre should encourage and pro- 
mote, in first importance, any native productiveness 
of qualified worthiness. Then, the testedly valuable 
dramatic literature past and present. These should 
be exhibited in consistent proficient art form, reflect- 
ing a pure native diction from the plainest speech to 
the most highly cultivated, from the commonest dia- 
logue to the sublimest poetry. The strong characters 
of all periods should be personified therein, — their 
customs, virtues, vices, foibles, sentiments, etiquette, 
dress, etc., — sufficiently depicting, as approximately 
as mechanical device and artist's brush will permit, 
the locations and scenes in which these characters lived 
and acted. It should acquaint us with their history 
and religion, and as far as it may be practical, display 
something of the arts and industries produced during 
their time. What one sees and hears from its stage 
should become at once for him, a criterion of what is 
best, proper and correct. 

Furthermore this theatre should, at its inception at 
least, through its exclusive election and controlling 
agency, permit of independent managements of first 
class presenting to the public that of the highest merit 
in current vogue and 1 - far or, of melodrama, comedy- 
drama and farce. It should also entertain such for- 
eign matter as may be of desired literary and artistic 
value, and intellectual profit. We could not too forci- 
bly, in the beginning at least, urge this condition of 
independent amicable relationship with its worthiest 



—3— 

companions. It is in an eventual natural conjoining 
of such matured worthiness and increasing healthiness, 
that we must heal the dismembered form and restore 
its essential symmetry. 

The influences exerted and benefits to be derived 
from endowed theatres should not be restricted merely 
to any one locality, theatrical centre, but spread as 
widely as possible throughout the length and breadth 
of the land. Their work should be carried beyond 
the immediate district which serves as their home. 
They should extend their influence over a circuit of the 
more important cities about the centre in which their 
home theatre is instituted. 

The theatre, to bring its mission to the highest ful- 
filment, must be wrested from the lacerative commer- 
cial lash that now forces its art bondage, and liberated 
by the revolutionary installation of men and women 
who have studiously and zealously prepared for the 
practice of their art, and have been equably graduated 
to it through some significant qualification. What is 
truly worthy in the theatre today cannot be deposed. 
It will maintain itself by virtue of its genuineness. 
But it must be weeded of carrioned parasites, or suffo- 
cate in their gathering stench. And if the endowed 
theatre shall ever stand for any intrinsic intention, a 
new stamen must be rooted, and evolved through a 
higher education for the actor, furnishing a qualifica- 
tion, and creating a status that shall attain a degree 
proclaiming some unquestionable certainty as to its 
holder's privilege to practice the accrument of his stu- 
dious preparation. There must be an honored and 
openly respected " profession of the theatre." There 
must be a required high qualification to practise it, 
secured through an educational system of procedure 



for playwright, manager, and actor, graduating them 
into a medium of activity at once distinct, sympathetic, 
and co-operate with the constancy of their preparation. 
I merely suggest that it might be accomplished by a 
combined complete course of educational import in the 
dramatic literature of Shakespeare, and through ele- 
mentary conditions of the art of playwriting, and by 
progressive studies of the plays most adaptable to a 
preparatory state of the art of acting; fundamental 
knowledge of play building and dramatic expression. 
Out of this qualification would come the status to 
dignify the " profession of the theatre," the play- 
wright-actor-manager, the co-essential forces to work 
efficiently and harmoniously to uplift the institution 
their unity forms. That is the " profession of the 
theatre." 

And (to quote from the opening paragraph in num- 
ber one of Stage Affairs in America Today) "the 
playwright is the very heart of this tri-essence, and 
should (its other co-essential factors working all in 
trinitarian confederacy) pulsate into vigorous life 
and health the substance which this vital union shapes, 
— the institution of the theatre." But we do not gain- 
say the just importance of manager and actor. Not- 
withstanding it would be as absurd to try to elevate 
the theatre through the offices of endowment by the 
mere supplying of good actors and sagacious business 
managers, as it would be to attempt to perpetuate 
the cause of music by sokfy educating to a high degree 
its interpreter — the " instrumentalist, and instating 
efficient business capacity to direct him. Of what 
intrinsic avail are they without a supply of accom- 
plished and worthy composers ? Of what use are good 
actors without good plays to put them in ? They are 



— 5— 

like a winning crew in a rotten shell. And how is it 
possible for an endowed theatre, directed by an indi- 
vidual not in harmony or sympathy with the vital 
spirit of its high intentions or cognizant or educated 
to the true quality of the actor's importance, to prop- 
erly maintain the beneficence of its mission? It could 
not properly so do. 

It would seem presumptuous anticipation, just now, 
to outline any systematic plan for the orderly conduc- 
tion of such an endowed theatre. It would take many 
years to primarily determine, and eventually bring the 
stipulated conditions to a state of useful fixedness and 
realization of their just importance. But I would like 
to say this much, that, in the anticipation of so feasible 
a scheme, and in such an expansive country as ours, 
would seem necessary at first, an agreeably united, and 
quite general movement in universities, colleges (and 
perhaps specially appointed academies of dramatic 
art), throughout the eastern, western and central cen- 
tres of the country. A sympathetic chain. The matter 
of endowed theatres in which to engage such qualifica- 
tion could progress as the preparatory condition 
seemed to rationally warrant. These theatres should 
be under the control of a learned board of direction ; 
to independently make its special appointments of play- 
wright, manager and actor to its individual control- 
ment, but sympathetically in general purpose and 
result. But the duties and* authorities of playwright, 
actor and manager should he clearly stipulated and 
duly respected, and not to be interfered with by such 
board of direction, except in the event of some mis- 
demeanor, laxity, or inefficiency of office. Then such 
board of direction assumes the authority to dismiss or 
regulate such disorder. And the separate offices of 



playwright, actor, and manager should know some de- 
termined distinction and individual duty which should 
be rigidly adhered to in harmonious and sympathetic 
workmanship, and, between themselves, signally and 
equally understood and respected. In case of inevit- 
able disputes that ever arise from time to time in asso- 
ciations of all arts and trades, this board of direction 
again assumes the position of authority and seeks to 
regulate such unavoidable differences. 

All these departmental conditions should be em- 
bodied originally in a single bond of organisation gov- 
erning all theatres under such endowments, and 
receiving the same specified graduation of this equable 
qualification. 

Endowed theatres of permanent abode, having reg- 
ularly instated companies, should importantly main- 
tain a playwright. More than one if so wished. The 
playwright should be under no undue constraint to 
furnish plays for these theatres, but of course there 
should be some compulsory determination to the task. 
While employed in translations, adaptations, revisions, 
etc., he should find opportunity, freed from all pecuni- 
ary worry, to properly engage in the enjoyment of 
original composition. In the production of such he 
should receive just consideration, assistance and pro- 
tection from the theatre engaging him, and be 
allowed the unrestrained privilege of privately con- 
trolling, and elsewhere .universally exhibiting, his 
workmanship should it^jfrove worthy of such wide 
attention. But I believe his labor belongs first to that 
institution which harbors him. At that hour when 
his art is universally accepted, his own individualism 
must assert its supremacy, and naturally sever his bond 
of constraint. 



The theatre to find its highest ends must enlist a 
condition of genuine seriousness and consequent re- 
spect in a qualified class of playwright studied and 
learned mostly in a diction of sufficient metrical form, 
lucidity, and pointedness to bespeak a language intel- 
lectual, elegant and effectual in its simple, intermed- 
iary, and sublime uses. Thereon may the actor build 
his art. But that actor cannot properly so do unless 
he himself has gained that same studied and learned 
discipline which may enable him equally to mentally 
grasp and expose such essential predominance. It is 
the vital storage force which contains the variety of 
expressions possible, and inspires the effort to reveal 
such. I do not gainsay the value at all times of em- 
bellishing pantomime, gesture and effective "business," 
if rationally and thoughtfully employed. They are the 
necessary " tricks of the trade." But too often they 
are used irrelevant to the significance of the context, 
with extravagant, meaningless purpose ; often nothing 
more than a deceitful condiment to an unpalatable 
hash, which can delude only the unfastidious taste. 
The unmitigated viciousness of many play builders to 
obscure, in the substitution of over-laden mechani- 
cal devices, strained situations, and effective ( ?) 
" business," their total inefficiency to write decent 
compositions, and the dangerous peril caused by 
managers ever greedy to exhibit them, provokes a 
state of constant injury to the theatre, the art it 
should uphold, and to the social condition they have 
the power to promote. 

The theme and construction of a play are the 
foundation upon which it rests. They afford the pre- 
liminary essentials upon which to build. Their 
principal requisites are form and regularity. It is 



not difficult to provide either. In contemplating the 
construction of an edifice we sometimes appropriate 
this form and regularity directly from natural sources ; 
oftentimes we transplace from former fundaments. 
But what is the predominant character that gives to 
this edifice usefulness and beauty? Its architectural 
design. That which bespeaks its grandeur. We 
often take from natural sources the theme for our 
play ; sometimes we transplace from former funda- 
ments. The greatest have ever done so. We have 
then but to construct with a sufficient degree of regu- 
larity. But to raise this structure to loftiness of 
character, to usefulness and beauty, that is, if we 
would truly proclaim its splendor, we must seek the 
studied, varied and imaginative skill of architectural 
design, — the cultivated art of lofty diction ! Without 
this gradiloquence, action, "business" and "effects" 
are but the mere trumperies we might hang on our 
cellar walls. They do not signify the vitality of the 
playwright's workmanship. 

Few playwrights of today hold the dominant type of 
manager in any special regard except in a servile 
struggle to secure a hearing, which, when once ob- 
tained, and a measure of success assured, most often 
reverses the conditions. Except in a few cases where 
the actor becomes highly necessary for the furtherance 
of pecuniary gain, he commands no respect and little 
consideration from either playwright or manager. 
And yet this same actor, although loudly denouncing 
the dictatorial exercise of both the former, continually 
stoops to the meanest services to obtain audience and 
favor. And both playwright and manager have ar- 
rogantly transplaced the substantial art of the stage 
manager by the whimsical substitution of their pecun- 



. —9— 

iary interest. "It is my property which is at stake," 
cry they out. It is no wonder then that the "high- 
salaried paraders" in the "show business" today as- 
sume a "warrantable" attitude of superiority, indiffer- 
ence, and often disobedience towards the poor little 
man who suffers their presumptuousness, disrespect, 
and commandments while "ringing up" and "ringing 
down" the curtain, and sees the importance of his 
office merely in the type of the programme sheet, 
which innocently accords him the post of " stage man- 
ager." 

In a just organization of the theatre there should 
be no falter in the estimate either of his executive 
command over the artists he directs, or of their re- 
spect and concurrent obedience to him. The stage 
manager should be the paragon of actors. Then the 
scenic artist and musician, the costumer, the wig mak- 
er, and the skilled mechanic shall feel an honestly ac- 
quired condition rightfully asserting its predominance, 
and they also will obey and respect it. And these shall 
be worthy of their hire, — the artist and the artisan. 
That condition of "local stage manager" in theatres 
throughout the country having no stationary com- 
pany, should be known by some such appropriate title 
as "foreman." 

The palmy days of the theatre convey scarcely any 
more meaning than the passing through of certain 
periods in the affairs of the stage when a greater num- 
ber of distinguished players, "stars," have flourished 
than in the intervening years. Such is only a natural 
phenomena peculiar to all phases of employment. It 
is just as common to learned vocations as to all others, 
but is seen less in such from the very fact of that ex- 
isting necessary state of compulsory discipline which 



—10— 

ever tends towards a general equalization of all orig- 
inal crudeness that must quite nearly, alike yield to 
the mouldable process of education. The theatre, in 
the possession of such continuate solidity, need no 
longer wait upon the inconstancy of histrionic phe- 
nomenon for its exaltedness. Equitably qualified, the 
actor enters an organization which shall respect and 
guard the just significance of such equity. If he be 
peculiarly fitted to predominately attract and shine, 
to be a "star," he will there find his special preferment 
as readily as does in his special sphere, the signally 
gifted clergyman, attorney, or physician. There, we 
must confess, each might feel a dominating desire for 
pecuniary gain in the pursuit of his vocation, but he 
could not lay claim to the right to practise that pro- 
fession without first having undergone a compulsory 
preparatory discipline. And he very soon knows that 
he cannot rest secure alone on that primary condition, 
even in his eagerness for ample remuneration. 

To call the theatre a profession has been from the 
beginning, and is today, presumptuous vanity. It 
never has, and does not now, demand of its incumbents 
any compulsory state of disciplinary learning. Its 
ranks have ever been, and still are, carelessly recruited 
from every condition of life; from tutored refinement 
to illiterate degradation. And thus disorderly inter- 
mingled, with frictional unnaturalness, such vainly 
labor to assimilate their opposite moods into a regu- 
lated quality that they would name — a profession. It 
is an utter impossibility under such a laxity of any at- 
tempt to exact a condition of learned qualification, to 
ever raise the theatre to the dignity of a profession. 
Schools of acting, systems of training, even practical 
stage experience, brought to the highest state of pro- 



—11— 

ficiency, cannot in themselves alone elevate the stage 
one jot. Its incumbents must know that disciplinary 
preparation which furnishes a proper qualification to 
be justly recognized and unswervingly upheld by the 
institution that requires it. Then we have a profession 
as rightfully claimed, and as respectfully viewed as 
any that finds its inception in the fostering care of our 
learned institutions. 

How can lasting good evolve out of an institution 
where scarce a voice from within ever has, or does sin- 
cerely say, — "Young man, young woman, enter here; 
for there is no chosen field of labor that can so earnest- 
ly entreat your highest character, honesty, and cul- 
ture!" How can increasing good evolve out of an es- 
tablishment wherein its greatest light, enjoying the 
cheering sense of vast remuneration, public applause, 
and personal gratification, takes up his pen and abhor- 
rently counsels the young aspirant (who has earnestly 
besought his advice) to seek any occupation else under 
the sun where he might gain a bare "living" rather 
than go upon the stage ? Or again, — wherein an over- 
towering intellect, bequeathing honored distinction to 
his country through rare idealism, talent, and devo- 
tion to his art, sighs in his greatest hour that he had 
not rather directed that mental force towards some 
vocation truly worthy? Search among the living to- 
day! Hear — in the retirement of every luxury — the 
wails of the mightiest histrionism sorrowing for the 
sad condition of the noble art of acting. Read (with 
rare exception) the disparaging, and too often dis- 
couraging notes sounded from our "foremost nota- 
bles " to the graduates of dramatic schools. I will not 
go on indefinitely, but only add my own modest decrial. 



—12— 

Before I entered upon a career of professionalism 
(ardently ambitious, devotedly serious, and studiously 
inclined) not one voice inside or outside the realms 
of the theatre would or did utter a sincere word of en- 
couragement to wisely spur me on to such a rashness. 
Associating and studying with actors justly recog- 
nized and famed throughout two continents, daily 
clerking in a generally considered desirable and gen- 
teel business among gentlemen highly esteemed and 
respected, continually seeking and being sought by am- 
ateur dramatic and operatic societies of acknowledged 
abilities, notwithstanding, never did I find a voice who 
dared applaud in me the thoughts of a stage career. 
Inside and outside the theatre world, but one opinion 
in general was held of that institution by both wise 
men and fools, — that it was a rotten business. I did not 
believe it. I entered this state of reputed histrionic 
putrefaction. I became an actor, enduring all environ- 
ments which voluntarily unlocked their doors to me. 
Alas ! I have seen, lived, and vindicated the truth 
of all such admonitions. My unrestrained apology 
lies herein. Friends, — you were right! The theatre 
is a rotten business. But I as unrestrainedly pro- 
claim that I do not believe it need be so, and that with 
all of you I shall hope to see, live, and vindicate in the 
future the falsity of that present truth. 

Let us then with hope, work, and patience sow the 
seeds of truth and beauty that shall some day flower 
forth in such abundance as to cast the fatal gloom of 
quick decay on these weeds of falsity, corruption, and 
vulgar show. Unflinchingly take our stand and just- 
ly fight against the intrusion of ignorance, dishonesty, 
and pretence into the domain of increasing beauty. 
Let it not be a common mart for vulgar trade ! A cur- 



—13— 

tained refuge for avaricious exploitations of sensa- 
tionalism, scandal, and vulgar notoriety. Neither a 
corrupt exchange where monies and titles of unbal- 
anced impressionability may purchase into the lime- 
light of ill- repute debasements of a worthy title, to 
which, although they hold no true and skilful right, 
they clamorously claim possession. Nor let it sink 
into a carnal agency to furnish lavish idlers with ten- 
der toys, and so crushing the hope of some trusting 
heart, destroying all faith, affection, sensitiveness ; and 
perhaps inflaming them to such jealousy and insanity 
that might lead to fatal indiscretions that no techni- 
cal legal mastery ought atone for. 

We know that the stage will never be free from 
many vicious qualities, besetting evils ; all professions 
however honorable in their highest calling possess 
them; but to a great general satisfaction, methodical 
organism, qualification, and the establishing of a 
status — a criterion for dramatic art through higher 
education — would rid the theatre of people who follow 
it only for the base sensual liking, notoriety, and vul- 
gar business ends ; people who all too soon scoff and 
sneer, but yet remain to stagnate its higher purposes. 

The profession of the theatre and the ennobling 
art of acting is worth such pains, or otherwise it had 
rather better be relegated to the realms of oblivion, 
effaced from the list of fine arts and accomplishments, 
attainments to be consummated only by years of meth- 
odical preparation, study, and finish through the con- 
catenate mediums and essential forces of higher ed- 
ucation and an honest strife for individual suprem- 
acy. 

Today, the managers and agents who cockily strut 
the walks of the "rialto," and snugly roost in the dust 



—14— 

of their dingy coops, comprise (with very few excep- 
tions) a mass of conspicuous nothingness. They do 
not deserve the smallest consequence of success or 
merit in their depraved estimate and ignorant under- 
standing of the true nobility of the institution they oth- 
erwise vulgarly appropriate, and the art they profane- 
ly desecrate. 

As to the horde of migratory actors who swoop from 
corner to corner, from agency to agency, from office 
to office, awaiting the chance to fight for the solitary 
crumb that may be thrown from the door of any of 
the well-stuffed denizens, for them I say, the day of 
unapt championship is past. The generosity of the 
better actor to readily condone for and shield the stub- 
born deficiencies of his less deserving brother, and to 
ever accord him an estimation thoroughly amiss to a 
wilful attitude of disregard and neglect of attempted 
attainment to the proper essentials that should char- 
acterize a man pursuing an art occupation, such mag- 
nanimity should be as equally and positively reversed 
to an earnest endeavor to remove from the march of 
progress such stuffy objectionableness. Neither 
should the worthiest of the stage longer sacrifice at 
the altar of jargon controlment, their art, manhood, 
and independence. 

The man or woman who at some time finds, that, 
in remaining longer in his self-chosen vocation, he 
is belittling his manhood and talents, and so considers 
his condition a mere condescension, and consequent- 
ly forsakes that self-elected occupation, is as much to 
be censured as the man who, in still abiding conde- 
scension, does not lift his hand or voice in honest en- 
deavor to add only that little which lies within the 
power of his single energy to better the general condi- 



V 
■15— 



tion of that vocation of which he is a part. And if 
any man doing this much, willingly and uncomplain- 
ingly enduring all the dishonest, ill-mannered, and il- 
literate abuse of the sovereign peasantry that rules the 
theatre in America today, if he has literally been turned 
from its every avenue of traffic, and while still trying 
to lend devoted, honest, and truthful benefit to that 
chosen highway, it still is within his possibility to open 
a new and broader avenue if he does not fear the 
anarchical vulgar hand of art assassination. 

There should always exist in equal distinctive rank, 
the opera — grand, romantic, and comic, (permitting of 
genuine burlesque), the drama — tragedy, romance, 
and comedy (including genuine farce), and the vaude- 
ville — the diverting, wholesome trivialties of stage 
entertainment. Each should require a qualification for 
the practice of its special art. Everything aside from 
these would then naturally be forced into some exclu- 
sive classification. There will always remain the char- 
latan, the fakir, and the audience to gape at him. And 
it behooves the State, the unitive authority over all 
national conditions, to promote and safeguard that 
which is qualifiedly worthy from the ruthless invasion 
and contaminating influence of that which is endan- 
gering. The force of such directorship will not be 
withheld if the beneficence of the institution of the 
theatre is purely felt in an honest and idealistic strife 
of special individualism towards a perfected common 
unition. 

Show beneficence a tangible qualification of educa- 
tional import, and his activity will bustle in the wel- 
fare of the theatre as quickly as in any purpose of 
dignified worthiness. 



—16— 

I believe in the theatre ! I love, revere, and respect 
every condition of it that tends through integrity and 
decency to amuse, persuade, and instruct mankind; 
every condition that strives to uplift, correct, and guide 
the higher instincts. But when these conditions do 
not exist, — when I know that there is too often no 
special effort to have them exist, but rather a spirit 
of intentioned, palpable substitution of dishonesty and 
questionable propriety, — I do not count myself disloyal 
to that institution and its incumbents in honestly and 
openly saying, that under such conditions, the theatre 
has not, does not, nor can it ever truthfully fulfill to 
mankind the tremendous possibilities which its mis- 
sion foretells. Neither will it until it shall itself feel, 
and transmit to worthy judgment, an unmistaken 
sense of qualified learning, soundly vibrating through 
the harmonious cords of its human instrumentality, 
the playwright — manager — actor, the profession of the 
theatre ! 



A series of fifteen pamphlets issued weekly on Tuesdays 
from January 15 to April 23, inclusive 

Number One January 15, 1907 



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IN AMERICA 



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A series of fifteen pamphlets issued weekly on Tuesdays 
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A scries of fifteen pamphlets issued weekly on Tuesdays 
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Copyright, 1907, 
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A scries of fifteen pamphlets issued weekly on Tuesdays 
from January 15 to April 23, inclusive 

Number Five February 12, 1907 



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No. 4. The Stage Manager. His Decaying 
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Copyright, 1907 
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A scries of fifteen pamphlets issued weekly on Tuesdays 
from January 15 to April 23, inclusive 

Number Six February 19, 1907 



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ance. 

No. 4. The Stage Manager. His Decaying 
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No. 5. The Theatre Orchestra. Its Enforced 
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Copyright, 1907 
By Allen Davenport. 



A scries of fifteen pamphlets issued weekly on Tuesdays 

from January 15 to April 23, inclusive 

— - — — _,__ — — — __ — ■_.... ....... r 

Number Seven February 26, 1907 



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No. 1. The Playwright. The Vital Importance 
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ance. 

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Power. 

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No. 6. The Dramatic Critic. The Rightful 
Censor; But Not Merely by "The 
Courtesy of the Theatre." 



Copyright, 1907 
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A series of fifteen pamphlets issued weekly on Tuesdays 
from January 15 to April 23, inclusive 

Number Eight March 5, 1907 



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ance. 

No. 4. The Stage Manager. His Decaying 
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No. 6. The Dramatic Critic. The Rightful 
Censor; But Not Merely by "The 
Courtesy of the Theatre.' ' 

No. 7. The Vaudeville System. The Morally 
Illegal Abuse of Its True Meant 
Significance. 



Copyright, 1907 
By Allen Davenport. 



A series of fifteen pamphlets issued weekly on Tuesdays 
from January 15 to April 23, inclusive 

Number Nine March 12, 1907 



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ance. 

No. 4. The Stage Manager. His Decaying 
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No. 5. The Theatre Orchestra. Its Enforced 
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No. 6. The Dramatic Critic. The Rightful 
Censor; But Not Merely by "The 
Courtesy of the Theatre." 

No. 7. The Vaudeville System. The Morally 
Illegal Abuse of Its True Meant 
Significance. 

No. 8. The Prevailing Stock System. Its Prac- 
tises a Detriment to Art Aim. 



Copyright, 1907 
By Allen Davenport. 



A series of fifteen pamphlets issued weekly on Tuesdays 
from January 15 to April 23, inclusive 

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No. 3. The Actor. The Quality of His Import- 
ance. 

No. 4. The Stage Manager. His Decaying 
Power. 

No. 5. The Theatre Orchestra. Its Enforced 
Protrusive Obedience. 

No. 6. The Dramatic Critic. The Rightful 
Censor; But Not Merely by "The 
Courtesy of the Theatre.' \ 

No. 7. The Vaudeville System. The Morally 
Illegal Abuse of Its True Meant 
Significance. 

No. 8. The Prevailing Stock System. Its Prac- 
tises a Detriment to Art Aim. 

No. 9. The Star System. Its Manifest Condi- 
tion Generally Irrelevant to the Con- 
sequence of Its True Meaning. 



Copyright, 1907 
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A series of fifteen pamphlets issued weekly on Tuesdays 
from January 15 to April 23, inclusive 

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The Playwright. The Vital Importance 
of His Commission. 

The Business Manager. His True Mis- 



sion. 

The Actor, 
ance. 



The Quality of His Import- 



His Decaying 



The Stage Manager. 
Power. 

The Theatre Orchestra. Its Enforced 
Protrusive Obedience. 

The Dramatic Critic. The Rightful 
Censor; But Not Merely by "The 
Courtesy of the Theatre." 

The Vaudeville System. The Morally 
Illegal Abuse of Its True Meant 
Significance. 

The Prevailing Stock System. Its Prac- 
tises a Detriment to Art Aim. 

The Star System. Its Manifest Condi- 
tion Generally Irrelevant to the Con- 
sequence of Its True Meaning. 

The Repertoire System. Many Compen- 
sations for It's Marked Decadency. 



Copyright, 1907, 
By Allen Davenport. 



A series of fifteen pamphlets issued weekly on Tuesdays 
from January 15 to April 23, inclusive 

— i - i n i i ~ " ' • ' i ~ i m i . i 1 i _ i -- i _^-h u— ur-i H ni .-. 

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No. 


8. 


No. 


9. 


No. 


10. 


No. 


11. 



The Playwright. The Vital Importance 
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sion. 

The Actor, 
ance. 



The Quality of His Import- 



His Decaying 



The Stage Manager. 
Power. 

The Theatre Orchestra. Its Enforced 
Protrusive Obedience. 

The Dramatic Critic. The Rightful 
Censor; But Not Merely by "The 
Courtesy of the Theatre.' ' 

The Vaudeville System. The Morally 
Illegal Abuse of Its True Meant 
Significance. 

The Prevailing Stock System. Its Prac- 
tises a Detriment to Art Aim. 

The Star System. Its Manifest Condi- 
tion Generally Jrrplevant to the Con- 
sequence of Its* true Meaning. 

The Repertoire System. Many Compen- 
sations for It's Marked Decadency. 
The One Play Combination System. Its 

Advantages for Art Accomplishment, 

If Wisely Pursued. 



Copyright, 1907, 
By Allen Davenport. 



A series of fifteen pamphlets issued weekly on Tuesdays 
from January 15 to April 23, inclusive 

Number Thirteen April 9, 1907 



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I. The Playwright: The Vital Importance of 
His Commission. 
II. The Business Manager: His True Mission. 

III. The Actor : The Quality of His Importance. 

IV. The Stage Manager: His Decaying Power. 
V. The Theatre Orchestra : Its Enforced Pro- 
trusive Obedience. 

VI. The Dramatic Critic: The Rightful Censor; 
but Not Merely "By the Courtesy o/ the 
Theatre." 
VII. The Vaudeville System : The Morally Illegal 
Abuse of Its True Meant Significance. 
VIII. The Prevailing Stock System: Its Practices 
a Detriment to Art Aim. 
IX. The Star System: Its Manifest Condition 
Generally Irrelevant to the Consequence 
of Its True Meaning. 
X. The Repertoire System : Many Compensations 

for Its Marked Decadency. 
XL The One Play Combination System: Its Ad- 
vantages for Art Accomplishment if Wisely 
Pursued. 
XII. The Dramatic School: Its Futile Results. 



Copyright, 1907, 
By Allen Davenport. 



A series of fifteen pamphlets issued weekly on Tuesdays 
from January 15 to April 23, inclusive 

Number Fourteen April 16, 1907 



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I. The Playwright: The Vital Importance of 
His Commission. 
II. The Business Manager: His True Mission. 

III. The Actor : The Quality of His Importance. 

IV. The Stage Manager: His Decaying Power. 
V. The Theatre Orchestra: Its Enforced Pro- 
trusive Obedience. 

VI. The Dramatic Critic: The Rightful Censor; 
but Not Merely " By the Courtesy of the 
Theatre." 
VII. The Vaudeville System: The Morally Illegal 
Abuse of Its True Meant Significance. 
VIII. The Prevailing Stock System: Its Practices 
a Detriment to Art Aim. 
IX. The Star System: Its Manifest Condition 
Generally Irrelevant to the Consequence 
of Its True Meaning. 
X. The Repertoire System : Many Compensations 

for Its Marked Decadency. 
XI. The One Play Combination System: Its Ad- 
vantages for Art Accomplishment if Wisely 
Pursued. 
XII. The Dramatic School: Its Futile Results. 
XIII. Acting: Its Tangibility as an Art to be 
Studied. 



LBFe '06 



Copyright, 1907, 
By Allen Davenport. 



A series of fifteen pamphlets issued weekly on Tuesdays 
from January IS to April 23, inclusive 

Number Fifteen April 23, 1907 



STAGE AFFAIRS 



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*. 



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I. The Playwright: The Vital Importance of 
His Commission. 
II. The Business Manager: His True Mission. 

III. The Actor : The Quality of His Importance. 

IV. The Stage Manager: His Decaying Power. 
V. The Theatre Orchestra: Its Enforced Pro- 
trusive Obedience. 

VI. The Dramatic Critic: The Rightful Censor; 

but Not Merely " By the Courtesy of the 

Theatre." 
VII. The Vaudeville System: The Morally Illegal 

Abuse of Its True Meant Significance. 
VIII. The Prevailing Stock System: Its Practices 

a Detriment to Art Aim. 
IX. The Star System : Its Manifest Condition 

Generally Irrelevant to the Consequence 

of Its True Meaning. 
X. The Repertoire System : Many Compensations 

for Its Marked Decadency. 
XI. The One Play Combination System: Its Ad- 
vantages for Art Accomplishment if Wisely 

Pursued. 
XII. The Dramatic School: Its Futile Results. 

XIII. Acting: Its Tangibility as an Art to be 

Studied. 

XIV. Shakespeare : The iFuture Highest Value of 

His Plays to thi' Stage. 
XV. The New Theatre: A Suggestion Regarding 
the Permanent Exaltedness of the Stage. 



Copyright, 1907, 
By Allen Davenport. 






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